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SHAKESPEARE 

AND     HIS     FELLOWS 


SHAKESPEARE 

AND     HIS    FELLOWS 

AN   ATTEMPT   TO   DECIPHER 
THE    MAN   AND   HIS   NATURE 


BY 

THE  RIGHT  HON.  D.  H.  MADDEN, 

M.A.,  HON.  LL.D.,  HON.  LITT.D. 

VICE-CHANCELLOR    OF    THE    UNIVERSITY    OF    DUBLIN 
AUTHOR   OF 
'THE    DIARY   OF    MASTER   WILLIAM    SILENCE       A    STUDY    OF    SHAKESPEARE 
AND    OF    ELIZABETHAN    SPORT  " 


NEW 

YORK 

E. 

p. 

DUTTON 

AND    COMPANY 

681   FIFTH 

AVENUE 

19 

16 

>    \ 
1    *     -. 

\_AU  rights 

• 
• 

reserved.'] 

Prinlt  •  in  Gtcat  Britain 


2<i// 


CONTENTS 


INTRODUCTION 


EDMUND    SPENSER 


THE    PLAYERS 


THE    UNIVERSITY   PENS 


BEN    JONSON 


CHRISTOPHER   MARLOWE 


FAMILY   AND    FRIENDS 


INDEX 


PAGE 
I 

12 

54 

9i 
114 

137 

170 

237 


1 


•     *  1 


SHAKESPEARE 

AND     HIS     FELLOWS 


'  All  that  we  know  of  Shakespeare  is  that  he 
was  born  at  Stratford-on-Avon,  married,  and 
had  children  there  ;  went  to  London,  where  he 
commenced  actor,  and  wrote  plays  and  poems  ; 
returned  to  Stratford,  made  his  will,  and  died.' 
These  words,  written  by  Steevens,  served  for 
more  than  a  century  as  a  fair  summary  of  the 
events  in  the  life  of  Shakespeare,  so  far  as  they 
were  then  known.  But  the  pious  labours  of 
succeeding  generations  have  added  so  much  to 
our  stock  of  knowledge  that  a  presentment  of  the 
life  of  Shakespeare  is  now  possible,  not,  indeed, 
complete  in  all  respects,  but  far  in  advance 
of  earlier  efforts.  '  An  investigation  extending 
over  two  centuries  has  brought  together  a  mass 
of  detail  which  far  exceeds  that  accessible  in  the 
case  of  any  other  contemporary  professional 
writer.'  It  is  not  probable  that  any  important 
addition  will  be  made  in  the  future  to  our  know- 


SHAKESPEARE  AND  HIS   FELLOWS 

ledge  of  the  facts  of  the  life  of  Shakespeare,  or 
that  they  will  be  piet-ciued  with  better  effect 
than  by  Sir  Sidue)  Lee  in  the  great  work  from 
which  these  words  are  taken.* 

Shakespeare's  life  was  the  uneventful  life  of  a 
successful  player  and  dramatist.  His  greatness, 
unlike  that  of  a  commander  or  statesman,  did 
not  depend  on  the  happening  of  great  events. 
But  great  events  are  not  those  from  which  we 
derive  the  clearest  insight  into  character.  The 
object  which  the  Father  of  Biography  set  before 
him  in  writing  the  life  of  a  great  man  was  to 
1  decipher  the  man  and  his  nature,'  and  he  thus 
explains  his  omission  to  record  some  facts  of 
historical  interest  :  '  For  the  noblest  deeds  do 
not  alwaies  shew  mens  vertues  and  vices,  but 
oftentimes  a  light  occasion,  a  word,  or  some  sport, 
makes  mens  naturall  dispositions  and  maners 
appeare  more  plaine  than  the  famous  battels 
won,  wherein  are  slaine  ten  thousand  men  ;  or 
the  great  armies,  or  cities  won  by  siege  or 
assault.'  f  The  student  of  Plutarch's  Life  of 
Alexander  the  Great  would  not  have  been 
enabled  by  it  to  give  an  account  of  the  battles 
of  the  Granicus  and  of  Issus,  or  to  show  how  these 

*  A  Life  of  William  Shakespeare,  by  Sir  Sidney  Lee.  New 
edition,  1915. 

f  Plutarch's  Lives,  Sir  Thomas  North's  version  {Life  of 
Alexander). 


INTRODUCTION 

fields  were  won.  But  he  could  give  an  answer  to 
this  question  :  What  manner  of  man  was  he  who 
did  these  great  things  ? 

It  was  by  following  in  the  footsteps  of  the 
master  that  Boswell  won  the  first  place  among 
his  disciples.  No  occasion  was  too  light,  no 
word  too  trivial,  no  sport  too  insignificant 
to  be  recorded  by  him,  and  so  it  came  to 
pass  that  Johnson,  in  the  words  of  Macaulay, 
'  is  better  known  to  us  than  any  other  man  in 
history.' 

In  Shakespeare's  time  biographies  were  not 
written,  and  the  instinct  to  which  we  owe  the 
modern  interview  was  as  yet  undeveloped.  We 
have  no  contemporary  account  of  Shakespeare 
such  as  Boswell  wrote  of  Johnson,  and  Lockhart 
of  Scott.  But  there  were  among  his  fellows  and 
contemporaries  men  greater  than  Boswell  or 
Lockhart,  who,  with  others  of  lesser  account, 
wrote  and  spoke  of  Shakespeare  many  things 
which  aid  us  in  attaining  to  some  understanding 
of  the  nature  and  character  of  a  man  who  was 
well  known  to  them. 

The  industry  of  the  last  half  century  has 
ransacked  the  plays,  poems,  and  pamphlets  of 
his  age  in  search  of  references  to  Shakespeare, 
or  to  his  work.  The  result  is  embodied  in  a 
goodly  volume  published  by  the  New  Shakespere 


B  2 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

Society  in  1874.*  From  Spenser's  Colin  Clouts 
Come  Home  Again  in  1591  to  Ben  Jonson's 
Discoveries  in  1641,  the  references  collected  in 
this  volume  in  number  exceed  one  hundred  and 
twenty.  They  are,  for  the  most  part,  notices 
of  the  writings  of  Shakespeare,  of  no  special 
value.  But  some  are  of  a  more  personal  interest, 
and  among  those  from  whose  writings  they  are 
collected  are  Shakespeare's  fellow  dramatists — 
Nash,  Dekker,  Peele,  Greene,  Drayton,  Chettle 
and  Fletcher. 

Shakespeare  became  a  member  of  a  company 
of  players  at  the  most  interesting  period  of  the 
history  of  the  stage.  The  occupation  of  player 
was  just  assuming  the  character  of  a  profession. 
To  the  profession  of  actor  Shakespeare  was 
loyally  constant  throughout  his  life,  and  his 
chosen  friends  and  associates  are  found  among 
his  fellow  players.  It  is  due  to  the  overpowering 
interest  which  attaches  itself  to  everything  con- 
nected with  Shakespeare,  rather  than  to  mere 
love  of  antiquarian  or  historical  research,  that 
we  are  now  in  possession  of  a  mass  of  informa- 
tion, not  only  as  to  the  condition  of  the  stage 

•  Shakespeare's  Centurie  of  Prayse  ;  being  materials  for  a  history 
of  opinion  on  Shakespeare  and  his  works.  A.D.  1 59 1  — 1693,  by 
C.  M.  Ingleby,  LL.D.  Second  edition  by  Lucy  Toulmin  Smith, 
1879.  '  AH  is  not  "  Prayse "  that  is  celebrated  in  the  ensuing 
pages  :  but  the  prevailing  character  of  the  parts  may  fairly  be  allowed 
to  the  whole.'     (Forespeech  to  the  first  edition.) 


INTRODUCTION 

in  his  time,  but  as  to  the  lives  and  characters  of 
the  individual  players  with  whom  he  was  more 
particularly  connected.  Some  questions  we 
should  gladly  ask  of  these  players,  and  of  the 
brilliant  band  of  University  wits  who  had  pre- 
pared the  way  for  the  coming  of  Shakespeare. 
We  cannot  go  to  them,  and  they  cannot  come  to 
us,  and  many  questions  to  be  asked  must  remain 
for  ever  unanswered.  But  from  what  has  been 
recorded  of  the  fellow  players  and  fellow 
dramatists  of  Shakespeare,  from  their  relations 
with  him,  and  from  what  was  said  and  written 
by  them,  some  assistance  may  be  gained  towards 
supplying  an  answer  to  the  questions  which  we 
would  ask.  Some  things  deserving  of  note  may 
also  be  gleaned  from  Shakespeare's  relations  with 
his  family,  and  with  his  neighbours  at  Stratford. 

Spenser,  Marlowe  and  Ben  Jonson  are  the 
greatest  names  in  the  most  interesting  period  of 
our  literary  history.  These  men  were  in  a  special 
sense  the  fellows  of  Shakespeare — fellow  poets 
or  fellow  dramatists.  These  pages  have  been 
written  in  the  hope  that  from  a  study  of  the 
lives  and  characters  of  these  great  men,  and  of 
their  associations  with  Shakespeare,  some  aid 
may  be  obtained  in  deciphering  the  man  and 
his  nature. 

The  word  '  fellow  '  in  the  ear  of  Shakespeare 

5 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

had  a  significance  which  it  has  since  then  lost. 
He  would  have  understood  it  to  mean  '  one  that 
is  associated  with  another  in  habitual  or  tem- 
porary companionship  ;  a  companion,  associate, 
comrade.'  This  sense  of  the  word,  usual  in  the 
time  of  Shakespeare  and  the  next  succeeding 
age,  is  noted  in  the  New  English  Dictionary  as 
'  now  rare.'  It  is  in  this  sense  that  the  word 
was  used  by  Shakespeare  in  his  will,  and  it  is 
in  this  sense  that  the  word  is  employed  in  these 
pages.  No  one  of  Shakespeare's  contemporaries 
is  here  accounted  as  his  fellow,  unless  he  is 
shown  to  have  been,  in  some  manner,  personally 
associated  with  him.  Bacon  and  Burleigh  were 
contemporaries,  but  no  link  has  been  discovered 
associating  either  of  them  with  the  man  Shake- 
speare. According  to  Ben  Jonson,  the  flights  of 
the  swan  of  Avon  '  did  take  Eliza  and  our 
James,'  and  favour  and  patronage  were  extended 
to  Shakespeare  by  Southampton  and  by  the 
noblemen  to  whom  the  First  Folio  was  dedi- 
cated. But  patronage  is  not  fellowship,  and  to 
find  the  fellows  of  Shakespeare  we  must  mix  with 
the  dramatists,  players  and  poets  of  the  age, 
and  with  those  of  his  family  and  friends  among 
whom  his  life  was  spent,  and  in  finding  them  we 
may  find  something  of  the  man  of  whom  we  are 
in  search. 

6 


INTRODUCTION 

For  our  present  purpose  it  may  be  noted  with 
satisfaction  that  when  his  contemporaries  speak 
of  Shakespeare  what  they  tell  us  relates  to  the 
man    rather    than    to    his    writings.     In    their 
notices  of  Shakespeare  we  find  nothing  of  the 
profound  literary  criticism,  the  work  of  Shake- 
spearian scholars  at  home  and  abroad,  by  which 
his    works    have    been    illuminated.     For    the 
attainment    of    a    knowledge    of    Shakespeare, 
poet  and  dramatist,  it  is  not  necessary  to  ap- 
peal to  his  fellows  and  contemporaries.    Nothing 
more    is    needed    than    a    careful    and    intelli- 
gent   study   of  what    he    has    written,   in   view 
of   the   literature,   the   history,   and   social   con- 
dition of  his  age.     But  a  true  instinct,  born  not 
of  mere  curiosity,  but  of  gratitude,  impels  us  to 
go  further,  and  to  attempt  to  discover  something 
of  the  man  who  bestowed  upon  humanity  this 
priceless  gift.     And  so  attempts  have  been  made 
to  decipher  the  man  Shakespeare  and  his  nature 
by    a    study    of   what    he    has    written.     These 
attempts  have  ended  in  uncertainty,  and  there- 
fore in  failure.     It  is  true  that  an  artist  must 
of  necessity  put  something  of  himself  into  the 
works  of  his  art.     But  when  his  work  takes  the 
form    of    drama,   the    difficulty    of    discovering 
the  personality  of  the  artist  is  greatest.      The 
medium    in  which    he   works   is   dialogue,   and 

7 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

the  nearer  the  dialogue  approaches  to  perfection 
in  expressing  the  character  of  the  speaker,  the 
more  effectually  the  personality  of  the  artist  is 
concealed. 

Some     things     about     Shakespeare     may     be 
known  with  certainty  from  what  he  has  written. 
Bagehot,  in  his  essay  '  Shakespeare — the   Man,' 
quoting  from  Venus  and  Adonis  the  description 
of  the  hare  hunt,  writes  :    '  It  is  absurd  by  the 
way  to  say  we  know  nothing  about  the  man  that 
wrote  that  :    we  know  that  he  had  been  after  a 
hare.'      We    may    conclude    from    his    constant 
habit  of  attributing  to  the  characters  in  his  plays 
thoughts  of  field  sports  and  horsemanship,  that 
these  things  were  dear  to  his  heart.     But  men 
of   the    most    opposite    natures    and    characters 
have   been  fond   of  sport   and   of  horses,   and, 
beyond  the  exclusion  of  dispositions  of  a  certain 
kind,  we  get  no  nearer  to  a  knowledge  of  the  man. 
We    may,  with    Professor    Dowden,    follow    the 
development  of  the  mind  and  art  of  Shakespeare. 
We  may  at  one  time  rest  with  him  in  the  forest 
of  Ardcn  ;    at  another  we  may  note  that  he  had 
bade  farewell  to  mirth;  and,  after  the  tragic  period, 
we  may  realise  '  the  pathetic  yet  august  serenity 
of  Shakespeare's  final  period.'     It  is  a  study  of 
the  deepest  interest,  and  of  great  assistance  in 
arriving   at   a   full  understanding   of  what   was 

8 


INTRODUCTION 

written  in  each  of  these  periods.  But  these 
were  varying  moods  of  one  and  the  same  man, 
and  we  feel  assured  that  if  the  question,  What 
manner  of  man  is  this  your  fellow,  Master 
Shakespeare  ?  had  been  put  to  Ben  Jonson 
or  to  Heming  and  Condell,  the  answer  would 
have  been  the  same  throughout  his  varying 
moods,  and  at  each  stage  of  his  intellectual 
development. 

But  Shakespeare  was  not  only  a  dramatist. 
He  was  a  poet  whose  thoughts  found  expression 
in  the  form  of  the  sonnet.  Here  again  the 
inquirer  after  the  man  is  baffled,  and  from  a 
study  of  the  Elizabethan  sonnet  he  may  rise 
with  the  feeling  that  if  Shakespeare's  design  in 
writing  his  sonnets  had  been  the  mystification  of 
posterity,  and  the  concealment  of  the  identity 
of  the  writer,  he  could  not  have  chosen  a  more 
effectual  method  of  carrying  out  his  purpose. 
If,  distrusting  his  judgment,  he  were  to  have 
recourse  to  critics  who  by  the  aid  of  poetic  in- 
stinct might  have  power  to  solve  the  mystery 
by  which  he  has  been  baffled,  his  perplexity  is 
not  lessened  when  he  is  told  by  Wordsworth  : 
'  With  this  key  Shakespeare  unlocked  his 
heart.'  For  while  he  is  considering  which  among 
the  many  and  different  kinds  of  hearts  unlocked 

9 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

in  the  sonnets  ought  to  be  attributed  to  Shake- 
speare, he  reads  in  Browning 

With  this  same  key 
Shakespeare  unlocked  his  heart  '  once  more.' 
Did  Shakespeare  ?     If  so,  the  less  Shakespeare  he. 

In  the  end  he  may  be  content  to  accept  the  sober 
conclusion  in  which  Sir  Sidney  Lee  sums  up  the 
result  of  an  exhaustive  examination  of  the 
sonnets  of  the  Elizabethan  age.  '  Most  of 
Shakespeare's  "  sonnets  "  were  produced  under 
the  incitement  of  that  freakish  rage  for  sonnet- 
eering which,  taking  its  rise  in  Italy  and  sweep- 
ing over  France  on  its  way  to  England,  absorbed 
for  some  half-dozen  years  in  this  country  a 
greater  volume  of  literary  energy  than  has  been 
applied  to  sonneteering  within  the  same  space 
of  time  here  or  elsewhere  before  or  since.  .  .  . 
Genuine  emotion  or  the  writer's  personal  experi- 
ence inspired  few  Elizabethan  sonnets,  and  no 
literary  historian  can  accept  the  claim  which 
has  been  preferred  on  behalf  of  Shakespeare's 
"  sonnets  "  to  be  at  all  points  a  self-evident 
exception  to  the  general  rule.  A  personal  note 
may  have  escaped  the  poet  involuntarily  in  the 
sonnets  in  which  he  gives  voice  to  a  sense  of 
melancholy  and  remorse,  but  Shakespeare's 
dramatic  instinct  never  slept,  and  there  is  no 

10 


INTRODUCTION 

proof  that  he  is  doing  more  there  than  produce 
dramatically  the  illusion  of  a  personal  con- 
fession.' * 

The  attempt  to  discover  the  man  Shakespeare 
in  what  he  has  written  is  never  a  fruitless  search, 
for  the  means  by  which  it  is  prosecuted  is  a 
careful  study  and  thorough  understanding  of  his 
works.  But  if  a  definite  result  is  to  be  attained, 
there  must  be  called  in  aid  such  information  as 
may  be  obtained  from  the  men  among  whom 
Shakespeare  lived,  moved  and  had  his  being. 
What  has  been  collected  in  these  pages  may  be 
no  more  than,  here  and  there,  '  a  light  occasion, 
a  word,  or  some  sport,'  but  these  things  may 
serve  to  make  the  man's  '  naturall  dispositions 
and  maners  appeare  more  plaine  than '  his  most 
famous  achievements  ;  his  Hamlet,  his  Lear,  his 
Othello,  and  his  As  You  Like  It. 

*  Life  of  Shakespeare,  p.  229. 


II 


EDMUND    SPENSER 

Shakespeare  left  Stratford  for  London  in 
the  year  1586,  as  is  commonly  supposed.  The 
earliest  reference  to  him  that  has  been  brought 
to  light  was  written  in  the  year  1 591 .  It  is 
from  the  pen  of  Edmund  Spenser. 

In  the  autumn  of  1589  Spenser  left  his  Irish 
home  for  London,  where  he  stayed  for  about  two 
years.  He  had  come  to  Ireland  in  1580  as 
secretary  to  Arthur  Lord  Grey,  of  Wilton.  In 
1588  he  obtained  by  purchase  the  post  of  clerk 
of  the  Munstcr  Council.  He  had  already 
acquired  a  grant  of  some  forfeited  lands  in  the 
county  of  Cork,  on  which  was  the  castle  of 
Kilcolman,  an  ancient  scat  of  the  Desmonds. 
Here  he  settled  on  taking  up  the  duties  of  his 
office. 

In  the  autumn  of  1589  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  was 
living  in  the  same  county  at  Youghal,  where  the 
visitor  may  find  his  house,  reverently  preserved, 
and  the  garden  where  the  potato  first  grew  in 
Irish  soil.  An  intimacy  had  sprung  up  between 
Raleigh  and  Spenser.  Disappointed  in  love,  and 
debarred  from  the  society  which  he  had  enjoyed 

12 


EDMUND   SPENSER 

in  London,  and  afterwards,  as  we  shall  see  in 
Dublin,  Spenser  was  living  with  a  sister  in  the 
lonely  castle  of  Kilcolman.*  His  relations  with 
his  neighbours,  so  far  as  we  know  of  them,  were 
not  satisfactory.  A  dispute  with  a  powerful 
neighbour,  Maurice  Viscount  Roche  of  Fermoy, 
had  involved  him  in  long  and  harassing  litigation. 
Raleigh  brought  with  him  a  welcome  gleam  of 
hope  and  encouragement.  He  found  Spenser 
at  work  on  the  Faerie  Queene,  of  which  the  first 
three  books  were  completed.  Raleigh  admired 
the  work,  and  sympathised  with  the  loneliness 
and  desolation  that  had  fallen  to  the  lot  of  the 
poet.  He  counselled  Spenser  to  go  with  him 
to  London,  where  his  work  might  be  brought 
out  under  the  patronage  of  Elizabeth.  In  the 
words  of  the  poem  in  which  Spenser  tells  the 
tale  of  his  stay  in  London,  Raleigh 

Gan  to  cast  great  lyking  to  my  lore, 

And  great  disliking  to  my  luckless  lot 

That  banisht  had  my  selfe  like  wight  forlore 

Into  that  waste  where  I  was  quite  forgot. 

The  which  to  leave  thenceforth  he  counseld  me, 

Unmeet  for  man  in  whom  was  aught  regarded, 

And  wend  with  him  his  Cynthia  to  see  ; 

Whose  grace  was  great,  and  bounty  most  rewardfull. 

*  Sarah  Spenser  married  John  Travers,  a  member  of  a  Lancashire 
family,  who  held  some  office  in  Munster.  Many  of  their  descendants 
are  living  in  County  Cork,  and  in  other  parts  of  Ireland. 

13 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

The  visit  to  London  was  successful.  The  first 
three  books  of  the  Faerie  Queene  were  brought 
out  under  the  patronage  of  Elizabeth,  and,  what 
is  more  to  our  present  purpose,  Spenser  spent 
two  years  in  the  company  of  the  most  famous 
wits  and  beauties  of  the  day,  and  formed  at 
least  one  friendship  which  endured  until  it  was 
closed  by  death. 

Spenser  returned  to  Kilcolman  some  time 
before  the  27th  of  December,  1 591 ,  for  on  that 
day  he  addressed  to  Raleigh  the  '  simple 
pastorall,'  in  which  he  tells  the  story  of  his 
visit  to  London.  In  Colin  Clouts  Come  Home 
Again,  the  shepherds  of  The  Shepheards  Calendar 
reappear.  Colin  (Spenser),  at  the  request  of 
Hobbinol  (Gabriel  Harvey),  describes  to  them 
what  he  saw  and  how  he  fared  at  the  Court  of 
Cynthia  (Elizabeth).  The  Shepheard  of  the 
Ocean  (Raleigh)  inclined  the  ear  of  Cynthia  to 
Colin's  oaten  pipe,  in  which  she 

Gan  take  delight 
And  it  desired  at  timely  houres  to  heare. 

Colin  then  tells  the  listeners  of  the  Shepheards 
who  were  '  in  faithful  service  of  faire  Cynthia.' 
The  poem  is  full  of  the  pastoral  conceits  then  in 
vogue.  But  there  are  passages  of  true  poetic 
beauty,  and  Spenser's  estimate  of  the  poets  of 

14 


EDMUND   SPENSER 

his  time  is  intended  to  be  taken  seriously.  '  I 
make  you  a  present,'  he  writes  in  his  dedication 
to  Raleigh,  '  of  this  simple  Pastorall,  unworthie 
of  your  higher  conceipt  for  the  meanesse  of  the 
stile,  but  agreeing  with  the  truth  in  the  circum- 
stance and  matter.' 

The  circumstances  of  his  journey  to  London 
by  sea  and  by  land,  and  his  reception  by  the 
Queen,  are  truthfully  told,  and  we  may  accept 
as  likewise  truthful  the  matter  of  the  poem  ;  his 
estimate  of  the  poets  whom  he  had  met. 
«*  Raleigh  could  have  had  no  difficulty  in  dis- 
cerning the  poets  disguised  under  the  names  of 
Harpalus,  Corydon,  Alcyon,  Palemon,  and  Amyn- 
tas ;  and  we  need  not  concern  ourselves  with 
the  less  effectual  efforts  of  commentators.  Three 
or  four  of  the  Shepherds  are  identified  beyond 
doubt.  The  'Shepherd  of  the  Ocean'  is  Raleigh. 
Alabaster  and  Daniel  are  mentioned  by  name. 

Of  another  he  writes 

And  there,  though  last  not  least,  is  Aetion ; 
A  gentler  shepherd  may  no  where  be  found, 
Whose  Muse,  full  of  high  thoughts  invention 
Doth  like  himself  heroically  sound. 

Shakespeare  is  not  addressed  by  name,  as 
Alabaster  and  Daniel  are.  But  the  reference 
to  a  name  that  did  '  heroically  sound  '  is 
unmistakable.     To  no  other  poet  of  the  day  is 

15 


SHAKESPEARE  AND  HIS  FELLOWS 

this  play  upon  his  name  applicable.  That 
Shakespeare  is  here  described  under  the  name  of 
Aetion,  '  a  familiar  Greek  proper  name  derived 
from  Aerog,'  Sir  Sidney  Lee  regards  as  '  hardly 
doubtful,'  and  this  conclusion  is  now  generally 
adopted.  The  temptation  presented  by  the 
martial  sound  of  Shakespeare's  name  was  found 
irresistible  by  others  than  Spenser.  '  The  war- 
like sound  of  his  surname  (whence  some  may 
conjecture  him  of  a  military  extraction),  Hasti- 
vibrans  or  Shakespeare,'  suggests  to  Fuller  a 
comparison  with  Martial.*  William  Winstanlcy 
writes  :  '  In  Mr.  Shakespeare,  the  glory  of  the 
English  stage,  three  eminent  poets  may  seem  in 
some  sort  to  be  compounded.  Martial,  in  the 
warlike  sound  of  his  surname,  Ovid,  the  most 
natural  and  witty  of  all  poets,  and  Plautus,  a 
very  exact  comedian,  and  yet  never  any  scholar.' 
And  Ben  Jonson,  in  his  lines  prefixed  to  the 
First  Folio,  says  that  Shakespeare  in  his  well- 
turned  and  true-filed  lines 

seemes  to  shake  a  Lance 
As  brandish't  at  the  eyes  of  Ignorance.  _ 

It  was  a  happy  inspiration  that  suggested  to 
Spenser  this  play  on  the  word  '  Shakespeare,' 
for  it  enables  us,  without  question  as  to  the 
identification  of  Aetion,  to  consider  his  estimate 

•  Worthies  of  England. 

16 


EDMUND   SPENSER 

of  the  shepherd  who  bore  this  warlike  name, 
than  whom  a  gentler  might  nowhere  be  found. 

That  Spenser,  '  the  greatest  of  Shakespeare's 
poetic  contemporaries,  was  first  drawn  by  the 
poems  into  the  rank  of  Shakespeare's  admirers ' 
Sir  Sidney  Lee  regards  as  a  likelihood.  Shake- 
speare's poems  were  known  to  his  friends  in 
manuscript  for  some  years  before  they  were 
given  to  the  world  in  print.  This  is  certainly 
true  of  his  sonnets.  These  incomparable  poems 
were  known  to  Francis  Meres  in  1598  as  circu- 
lating among  Shakespeare's  private  friends. 
They  were  not  published  until  1609,  when  they 
were  printed  by  an  adventurous  publisher  named 
Thorpe,  dedicated  to  their  '  onlie  begotter,'  one 
'  Mr.  W.  H.,'  to  the  mystification  of  many  gene- 
rations of  curious  and  learned  Shakespearians. 
Venus  and  Adonis  was  published  in  1593. 
But  as  the  poet,  in  the  dedication  to  South- 
ampton, calls  it  '  the  first  heir  of  my  invention,' 
it  must  have  been  written  before  the  production 
of  Love's  Labour's  Lost  (1591).  It  was  therefore 
in  manuscript  at  the  time  of  Spenser's  visit  to 
London.  So  in  all  probability  was  Lucrece, 
which  was  not  published  until  1594. 

For  more  than  a  century  after  the  introduction 
of  printing,  works  differing  as  widely  as  poems, 
and  books  of  sport  and  horsemanship,  circulated 

17  c 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

in  manuscript,  and  it  was  by  the  acceptance  of 
their  works  in  this  form  that  authors  were 
encouraged  to  appeal  to  a  wider  circle  of  readers 
by  means  of  print.* 

Aetion  was  not  the  only  one  of  Cynthia's 
shepherds  who  was  made  known  to  Colin  Clouts 
by  poems  that  were  still  in  manuscript.  William 
Alabaster,  of  whom  he  writes  by  name,  was  the 
author  of  a  poem  entitled  E  litis,  written  in 
Latin  hexameters  in  praise  of  Elizabeth.  Of 
this  work  Spenser  writes 

Who  lives  that  can  match  that  heroic  song 
Which  he  hath  of  that  mightie  princesse  made  ? 

Notwithstanding  this  encouragement  Alabaster 
never  completed  the  poem,  the  first  book  of 
which  is  preserved  in  manuscript  in  the  library 
of  Emmanuel  College,  Cambridge."]"  Daniel  also 
was  known  to  Spenser  by  a  poem  then  in  manu- 
script.    Of  him  Spenser  writes 

And  there  is  a  new  shepheard  late  up  sprong, 
The  which  doth  all  afore  him  far  surpasse  ; 
Appearing  well  in  that  well  tuned  song 
Which  late  he  sung  unto  a  scornful  lasse. 

This  is  an  apt  description  of  his  Delia,  which 
was  not  published  until  1592. 

For  Daniel,  as  for  Aetion,   Spenser  desires  a 

*  See  a  note  to  Sir  Sidney  Lee's  Life  of  Shakespeare,  at  p.  157. 
|  Diet.  Nat,  Biography,  tit.  '  Alabaster.' 

18 


EDMUND   SPENSER 

stronger  flight,  and,  less  happy  in  his  augury, 
predicts  for  his  trembling  muse  success  in 
tragedy  : 

Yet  doth  his  trembling  Muse  but  lowly  flie 
As  daring  not  too  rashly  mount  on  hight. 

Addressing  Daniel  by  name,  he  bids  him  to 
rouse  his  feathers  quickly  : 

And  to  what  course  thou  please  thy  selfe  advance, 
But  most,  me  seemes,  thy  accent  will  excell 
In  tragick  plaints,  and  passionate  mischance. 

Spenser  may  have  been  attracted  to  Shake- 
speare by  the  melody  of  a  love  poem  written 
in  discipleship  to  Ovid.  With  his  friend  Gabriel 
Harvey  he  may  have  found  in  Lucrece  a  '  muse 
full  of  high  thoughts  invention.'  Harvey  wrote 
of  this  poem  as  comparable  to  Hamlet.  '  The 
younger  sort  take  much  delight  in  Shakespeare's 
Venus  and  Adonis,  but  his  Lucrece  and  his  tragedy 
of  Hamlet,  Prince  of  Denmarke  have  it  in  them 
to  please  the  wiser  sort.'  *  Although  Spenser 
may  have  been  attracted  by  the  melody  of  Venus 
and  Adonis,  and  may  have  found  high  thoughts 
invention  in  Lucrece,  if  we  could  catch  an  echo 
of  the  heroic  sound  given  forth  by  the  muse  of 

*  Written  by  Harvey  in  a  copy  of  Speght's  Chaucer,  1598. 
The  volume  in  which  this  note  was  written  passed  into  the  collection 
of  Bishop  Burnet,  whose  library  was  burned  in  a  fire  at  Northumber- 
land House.  The  note  had  been  seen  by  Malone  and  Steevens,  and 
its  authenticity  has  never  been  questioned. 

19 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

Aetion,  we  must  go  beyond  the  poems,  and  we 
need  not  travel  far. 

The  first  part  of  King  Henry  VI.  was  pro- 
duced during  Spenser's  stay  in  London.  The 
exact  date  cannot  be  ascertained.  Malone  fixes 
it  at  1589.  In  Mr.  FurnivalPs  Trial  Table  of 
the  Order  of  Shakespeare *s  Plays,  prefixed  by 
Professor  Dowden  to  his  Shakespere  His  Mind 
and  Art,  the  supposed  date  is  1 590-1.  Pro- 
fessor Masson  {Shakespeare  Personally)  regards 
it  as  'a  specimen  of  Shakespeare,  about  1589 
or  1590,  first  trying  his  hand  in  a  Chronicle  Play 
from  English  History.' 

No  time  could  have  been  more  favourable  for 
the  presentation  to  the  public  of  a  stirring 
national  and  heroic  drama.  The  patriotic  fer- 
vour that  had  been  kindled  by  the  defeat  and 
destruction  of  the  Armada  was  at  its  height. 
The  groundlings  saw  in  Talbot,  the  hero  of  the 
drama,  a  great  English  champion,  the  scourge 
of  France,  who  scorned  to  be  exchanged  for  an 
ignoble  prisoner,  and  they  hailed  with  delight 
his  heroic  speech  and  conduct.  The  success  of 
the  play  was  extraordinary.  Thomas  Nash,  in 
Pierce  Penile ss  His  Supplication  to  the  Divell 
(1592),  wrote  thus  in  defence  of  'our  English 
Chronicles  wherein  our  forefathers'  valiant 
actions  (that  have  lien  long  buried  in  rustic  brasse 

20 


EDMUND    SPENSER 

and  worme-eaten  bookes)  are  revived,  and  they 
themselves  raysed  from  the  grave  of  oblivion ' : 

'  How  would  it  have  joyed  brave  Talbot  (the 
terror  of  the  French)  to  thinke  that  after  he 
had  lyne  two  hundred  years  in  his  Toomb  hee 
should  triumphe  againe  on  the  Stage,  and  have 
his  bones  new  embalmed  with  the  teares  of  ten 
thousand  spectators  at  least  (at  severall  times) 
who  in  the  Tragedian  that  represents  his  person 
imagine  they  behold  him  fresh  bleeding  !  ' 

Among  the  tens  of  thousands  who  daily 
crowded  the  playhouse  we  may  surely  place 
Spenser.  He  saw  beyond  the  shouting  crowd, 
and  with  the  intuition  of  genius  predicted  an 
eagle  flight  for  the  gentle  poet  with  the  warlike 
name,  whose  muse  gave  forth  a  sound  so  heroical. 

The  enthusiastic  reception  accorded  to  this 
play  contrasts  strongly  with  the  comments  of 
modern  critics  who  for  the  most  part  dismiss  it 
with  the  frigid  remark  that  it  must  be  accepted 
as  in  some  small  part  the  work  of  Shakespeare, 
because  we  find  it  included  in  the  authentic 
edition  of  his  plays  printed  in  1623.  The  scene 
in  the  Temple  Gardens  is  the  part  that  has  been 
generally  accepted  as  justifying  the  inclusion  of 
the  play.  Professor  Dowden  writes  :  '  Whether 
any  portions  of  the  first  part  of  Henry  VI.  be 
from  the  hand  of  Shakespeare,  and  if  there  be, 

21 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

what  those  portions  are,  need  not  be  here  investi- 
gated. The  play  belongs  in  the  main  to  the  pre- 
Shakesperian  school.'  * 

Regarded  as  a  work  of  art,  the  play  deserves  the 
condemnation  that  it  has  received  at  the  hands 
of  these  critics.  It  was  in  the  main  the  work  of 
an  inferior  dramatist,  whether  Greene  or  Peele 
it  is  needless  to  inquire.  But  the  drama,  as 
revised  by  Shakespeare,  strikes  a  heroic  note, 
and  in  the  recognition  of  this  strain  the  ground- 
lings are  at  one  with  Spenser,  and  with  the 
greatest  of  later-day  critics  of  Shakespeare,  Swin- 
burne, who  by  force  of  genius  was  able  to  catch 
an  echo  of  the  heroic  note  which  struck  the  ear 
and  stirred  the  heart  of  Spenser. 

In  his  Study  of  Shakespeare  Swinburne  devotes 
himself  to  this  play,  mainly  as  showing  the 
development  of  the  art  of  Shakespeare,  who, 
under  the  influence  of  Marlowe,  was  passing 
from  rhyme  to  blank  verse.  He  exonerates  the 
memory  of  Shakespeare  from  the  imputation  of 
having  perpetrated  in  its  evil  entirety  the  first  part 
of  King  Henry  VI.  He  had  no  part  or  share  in  the 
defamation  of  the  Maid  of  Orleans.  But  to  him, 
as  to  Spenser,  the  heroic  strain  which  Shakespeare 
infused  into  a  dull  play,  and  which  raised  it  to 
the  level  of  a  work  of  genius,  was  apparent. 

•  Sbakespere  His  Mind  and  Art. 
22 


EDMUND   SPENSER 

'  The  last  battle  of  Talbot  seems  to  me  as 
undeniably  the  master's  work  as  the  scene  in  the 
Temple  Gardens,  or  the  courtship  of  Margaret 
by  Suffolk.'  Throughout  the  play  he  finds 
'  Shakespeare  at  work  (so  to  speak)  with  both 
hands — with  his  left  hand  of  rhyme,  and  his 
right  hand  of  blank  verse.'  The  noble  scene  of 
parting  between  the  old  hero  and  his  son  on  the 
verge  of  desperate  battle  and  certain  death  he 
regards  as  '  the  last  and  loftiest  farewell  note  of 
rhyming  tragedy.' 

Hark,  countrymen !  either  renew  the  fight 
Or  tear  the  lions  out  of  England's  coat. 

He  fables  not ;   I  hear  the  enemy  : 

Out,  some  light  horsemen,  and  peruse  their  wings. 

O,  negligent  and  heedless  discipline  ! 

How  are  we  park'd  and  bounded  in  a  pale, 

A  little  herd  of  England's  timorous  deer, 

Mazed  with  a  yelping  kennel  of  French  curs  ! 

If  we  be  English  deer,  be  then  in  blood  ; 

Not  rascal-like,  to  fall  down  with  a  pinch, 

But  rather,  moody-mad  and  desperate  stags, 

Turn  on  the  bloody  hounds  with  heads  of  steel 

And  make  the  cowards  stand  aloof  at  bay  : 

Sell  every  man  his  life  as  dear  as  mine, 

And  they  shall  find  dear  deer  of  us,  my  friends. 

God  and  Saint  George,  Talbot  and  England's  right 

Prosper  our  colours  in  this  dangerous  fight  !  * 

*   i  Hen.  VI.,  I.  v.  27  ;   IV.  ii.  42. 
23 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

Here  is  the  heroic  sound  ;  here  is  the  brandish- 
ing of  the  spear  of  which  Spenser  thought,  when 
from  his  castle  of  Kilcolman  he  wrote  to  Raleigh 
of  the  poets  by  whom  Cynthia  was  surrounded, 
of  whom  none  was  more  gentle  than  the  shepherd 
whose  muse  did  like  his  name  heroically  sound. 

But  what  Spenser  tells  us  of  the  man  whom  he 
knew  in  the  year  1591,  and  whom  he  chose  to 
call  Aetion,  is  more  to  our  purpose  than  his 
estimate  of  the  qualities  of  his  muse,  for  of  these 
we  can  form  our  own  opinion  unaided.  Of  this 
man  he  writes  :  '  No  gentler  Shepheard  may 
no  where  be  found.' 

The  word  '  gentle,'  in  the  sense  in  which  it 
was  used  by  Spenser,  has  disappeared  from  the 
English  language,  and  it  has  left  no  successor. 
In  this  sense,  which  is  noted  as  archaic,  it  is  thus 
defined  in  the  New  English  Dictionary  :  '  Having 
the  character  appropriate  to  one  of  good  birth  : 
noble,  generous,  courteous.'  In  these  qualities, 
in  the  opinion  of  Spenser,  not  one  of  the  poets 
whom  he  met  in  London  surpassed  the  young 
actor,  commenced  poet  and  dramatist,  who  had 
come  from  the  country  town  of  Stratford  a  few 
years  ago,  to  seek  his  fortune,  in,  as  was  reported, 
a  very  mean  condition. 

There  was  not  one  of  Shakespeare's  fellows 
whose  estimate  of  the  qualities  of  a  gentleman  is 

24 


EDMUND   SPENSER 

entitled  to  more  respect  than  the  writer  of  these 
words.  Edmund  Spenser,  son  of  a  London 
clothmaker,  took  his  name  from  a  '  house  of 
ancient  fame.'*  His  relationship  to  the  Spensers 
of  Althorp  was  acknowledged.  He  dedicated 
poems  to  the  daughters  of  Sir  John  Spenser, 
the  head  of  that  branch  of  the  family,  and  in 
Colin  Clouts  he  writes  of  these  ladies  as 

The  honor  of  the  noble  familie  : 

Of  which  I  meanest  boast  myselfe  to  be. 

And  Gibbon  writes  :  '  The  nobility  of  the 
Spensers  has  been  illustrated  and  enriched  by 
the  trophies  of  Marlborough  ;  but  I  exhort  them 
to  consider  the  Faerie  Queen  as  the  most  precious 
jewel  of  their  coronet.' 

A  more  worthy  conception  of  the  obligations 
of  gentle  birth — of  late  happily  revived — held 
good  in  Tudor  times  than  in  some  later  years, 
and  the  poet's  father,  '  a  gentleman,'  brought 
no  discredit  on  his  name  when  he  became  a  free 
journeyman  in  the  '  art  and  mystery  of  cloth- 
making.' 

In  this  business  he  was  not  successful,  for  his 
son  Edmund  received  assistance  as  a  poor 
scholar  of  Merchant  Taylors'  school,  when,  in 
1569,  he  entered  Pembroke  Hall,  now  Pembroke 

*  Epithalamium. 

25 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

College,  Cambridge,  as  a  sizar.  He  took  his 
degree  of  M.A.  in  1576.  His  lifelong  friend, 
Gabriel  Harvey,  the  Hobbinol  of  the  Shcpheards 
Calendar  and  of  Colin  Clouts,  obtained  a  fellow- 
ship in  this  college  in  the  following  year.  A  man 
of  great  ability  and  learning,  he  held  a  high 
position  in  the  University,  and  Spenser,  through 
his  intimacy  with  Harvey,  must  have  been 
brought  into  touch  with  the  best  class  of  students 
of  his  day.  From  his  experience  at  the  Uni- 
versity, and  afterwards  in  public  life,  Spenser 
was  well  qualified  to  form  an  estimate  of  the 
qualities  which  entitled  a  man  to  be  regarded 
as  '  gentle.' 

But  Spenser  has  still  stronger  claims  to  our 
attention.  He  was  the  intimate  friend  of  Philip 
Sidney  and  of  Walter  Raleigh,  and  his  great  work, 
the  Faerie  Queene,  was  an  allegory,  of  which  the 
general  end  was  *  to  fashion  a  gentleman  or 
noble  person  in  vertuous  and  gentle  discipline.' 
Surely  commendation  from  Spenser  is  praise 
indeed. 

It  must  startle  a  reader  accustomed  to  the 
ordinary  description  of  the  '  man  from  Strat- 
ford,' commencing  dramatist  as  a  theatrical 
fac  totum,  to  find  one  like  Spenser  writing  of  him, 
not  only  that  he  was  '  gentle,'  but  that  among 
the  poets  of  the  day  no  '  gentler  '  than  he  could 

26 


EDMUND    SPENSER 

be  found.  For  there  were  those  among  the 
Shepherds  of  the  Court  of  Cynthia  to  whom  the 
term  '  gentle '  could  have  been  applied  with 
undoubted  fitness.  Astrophel  we  know  to  be 
Sir  Philip  Sidney,  for  he  appears  under  the  same 
title  in  Spenser's  elegy  on  his  death.  Alabaster, 
educated  in  Westminster  School,  became  a 
Fellow  of  Trinity  College,  Cambridge.  Daniel 
left  Oxford  without  a  degree,  but  he  became 
tutor  to  William  Herbert,  afterwards  Earl  of 
Pembroke,  to  whom  the  Folio  of  1623  was  dedi- 
cated in  recognition  of  the  favours  with  which 
he  had  '  prosecuted  '  the  author.  Amyntas 
has,  with  probability,  been  identified  with  Ferdi- 
nando,  Earl  of  Derby.  The  young  poet,  who  as  a 
gentleman  compared  favourably  with  men  like 
these,  was  very  different  from  the  illiterate  clown 
of  whom  we  have  read,  the  creature  of  the 
imagination  of  certain  later-day  writers. 

There  was  really  nothing  in  the  birth  or 
education  of  Shakespeare  to  render  it  improbable 
that  one  of  the  fortunate  ones 

Quibus  arte  benigna 
Et  meliore  luto  finxit  precordia  Titan 

should  have  possessed  the  qualities  ascribed  to 
him  by  Spenser.  Something  more  on  this  sub- 
ject will  be  found  in  a  chapter  entitled  '  Family 

27 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

and  Friends.'  But  antecedent  improbability, 
even  where  it  exists,  must  yield  to  the  testimony 
of  credible  witnesses,  a  class  in  which  Edmund 
Spenser  may  surely  be  placed. 

That  Spenser  was  attracted  by  the  personality 
of  Shakespeare  appears  from  the  terms  of  per- 
sonal esteem  in  which  he  writes  of  Aetion.  It 
was  not  until  after  the  death  of  Spenser  that 
Shakespeare  gave  expression  to  his  feelings  of 
regard.  But  what  he  then  wrote  leaves  us  in 
no  doubt  as  to  the  reality  and  strength  of  the 
friendship  that  had  its  origin  in  Spenser's  visit 
to  London  in  1589. 

Spenser's  disposition  was  social,  and  he  had 
the  genius  of  friendship,  qualities  not  always 
united  in  the  same  individual.  Throughout  his 
life  he  found  delight  in  the  society  of  men  of 
letters.  With  Philip  Sidney,  Sir  Edward  Dyer, 
and  some  other  friends,  he  formed  a  literary 
club  styled  '  Areiopagus,'  the  meetings  of  which 
appear  to  have  been  held  in  the  years  1578  and 
1 579  at  Leicester  House.*  His  correspondence 
with  Gabriel  Harvey  about  the  same  time  affords 
evidence,  not  only  of  his  literary  activity,  but 
of  his  constancy  in  friendship.  His  lifelong 
friendship  with  Harvey  probably  had  its  origin 
in  kindness  shown  by  a  senior  member  of  the 

*  Diet.  Nat.  Biography. 
28 


EDMUND    SPENSER 

University,  of  established  position,  to  a  poor 
and  unknown  sizar.  Some  such  explanation 
seems  to  be  needed,  for  no  characters  could  be 
more  unlike  than  the  author  of  the  Faerie  Queene, 
and  the  arrogant  and  scurrilous  pamphleteer 
whose  paper  warfare  with  Nash  and  Greene  is  an 
unedifying  chapter  of  Elizabethan  literature. 
So  scandalous  did  it  become  that  in  1599  it  was 
ordered  by  authority  '  that  all  Nashe's  bookes 
and  Dr.  Harvey's  bookes  be  taken  wherever  they 
may  be  found,  and  that  none  of  the  same  bookes 
be  ever  printed  hereafter.'*  Spenser's  love  of 
Harvey  was  at  one  time  a  real  danger  to  English 
literature.  The  ambition  of  Harvey's  lifetime 
was  to  be  known  as  the  inventor  of  the  English 
hexameter.  He  did  his  utmost  to  induce  his 
friend  to  abandon  rhyme  for  classical  methods  of 
versification,  and  it  appears  from  their  correspon- 
dence that  he  was  at  one  time  all  but  successful. 
But  Spenser's  true  literary  sense  and  ear  for 
the  music  of  words  saved  us  from  this  calamity, 
and  he  found  salvation  in  rhyme,  as  Shakespeare 
found  it  in  blank  verse. 

Friendship  was  a  necessary  of  life  to  Spenser. 
When  he  found  himself  in  the  position  of  secre- 
tary to  the  Lord  Deputy  of  Ireland  he  surrounded 
himself  with  the  best  literary  society  that  Dublin 

*  Cooper,  Atben.  Cant. 
29 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

could  supply,  and  in  Lodovick  Bryskctt,  an 
Irish  official,  he  found  an  intimate  and  congenial 
friend.  Bryskett,  who  is  said  to  have  been  of 
Italian  descent,  had  filled  the  office  of  Clerk  of 
the  Council  under  Sir  Henry  Sidney.  Becoming 
an  intimate  friend  of  Philip  Sidney,  he  was  his 
companion  in  a  three  years'  tour  through 
Germany,  Italy  and  Poland.  He  was  a  poet, 
and  Spenser  showed  his  appreciation  of  his 
friend's  work  by  including  two  of  his  poems  in  a 
collection  which  he  published  in  1595  under  the 
title  of  Astrophel.  He  also  addressed  to  Bryskett 
as  '  Lodwick,'  a  sonnet  included  in  his  Amoretti 
(Sonnet  xxxiii.).  But  Bryskett's  claim  to 
grateful  remembrance  rests  on  the  introduction 
which  he  prefixed  to  a  translation  of  an  Italian 
philosophical  treatise  entitled  A  Discourse  of 
Civill  Life  containing  the  Ethike  Part  of  Morall 
Philosophic.  The  introduction  to  this  book, 
addressed  to  Arthur  Lord  Grey,  of  Wilton,  is 
described  by  Sir  Sidney  Lee  as  of  unique  interest 
in  English  literature.  In  it  we  find  ourselves 
in  the  company  of  a  party  of  friends  assembled 
at  the  author's  cottage,  near  Dublin.  They  were 
described  as  '  Dr.  Long,  Primate  of  Ardmagh  ; 
Sir  Robert  Dillon,  Knight  ;  M.  Dormer,  the 
Queenes  Sollicitor  ;  Capt.  Christopher  Carleil  ; 
Capt.    Thomas    Norreis  :      Capt.    Warham    St. 

30 


EDMUND    SPENSER 

Leger ;  Capt.  Nicholas  Dawtrey ;  and  M. 
Edmond  Spenser,  late  your  Lordships  Secre- 
tary ;   and  M.  Smith,  apothecary.' 

Bryskett,  supported  by  the  applause  of  the 
company,  appealed  to  Spenser  as  '  not  onely 
perfect  in  the  Greek  tongue,  but  also  very  well 
read  in  Philosophic  both  Morall  and  Naturall,' 
to  spend  the  time  which  they  had  '  destined  to 
familiar  discourse  and  conversation,  in  declaring 
to  them  the  benefits  obtained  by  the  knowledge 
of  Moral  Philosophy,  and  in  expounding  and 
teaching  them  to  understand  it.'  Spenser  asks 
to  be  excused  on  the  ground  that  he  had  already 
undertaken  a  work  tending  to  the  same  effect, 
'  which  is  in  heroical  verse,  under  the  title  of  a 
Faerie  Queene,  to  represent  all  the  moral  virtues  ; 
assigning  to  every  Virtue  a  Knight,  to  be  the  patron 
and,  defender  of  the  same?  The  company  were 
well  satisfied,  and  '  shewed  an  extreme  longing 
after  his  worke  of  the  Faerie  Queene  whereof  some 
parcels  had  bin  by  some  of  them  seene,'  and 
pressed  Bryskett  to  produce  his  translation  of 
which  Spenser  had  spoken.  Bryskett  complied, 
and  delivered  his  translation  of  the  work  of  Giraldi, 
with  which  the  company  must  have  been  well 
pleased,  for  the  discussion  of  the  book  and  of  some 
questions  proposed  by  Spenser  on  the  doctrines 
of  Plato  and  Aristotle  lasted  for  three  days. 

31 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

With  our  knowledge  of  Spenser's  sociable  dis- 
position and  love  of  literary  companionship,  we 
can  understand  how  he  bemoaned  the  '  luckless 
lot  '  that  had  banished  him  '  like  wight  forlore  ' 
to  the  waste  in  which  he  was  forgotten,  and  we 
can  realise  his  enjoyment  of  the  society  of  the 
shepherds  whom  he  celebrates  in  Colin  Clouts. 
We  are  also  prepared  to  find  in  his  writings,  as 
well  as  in  those  of  Shakespeare,  evidence  that 
he  found  in  Action  what  most  in  life  he  prized — a 
friend. 

Spenser  paid  another  visit  to  London  towards 
the  end  of  the  year  1595,  returning  to  Ireland  in 
the  beginning  of  1597.  Shakespeare's  greatest 
works  had  not  then  been  produced.  But  the 
author  of  Romeo  and  Julia,  The  Merchant  of 
Venice,  Richard  11.  and  Richard  111.  had  gone 
far  in  the  eagle  flight  which  Spenser  six  years 
before  had  predicted  for  Aetion.  During  Spen- 
ser's stay  in  London  he  produced  the  second 
part  of  the  Faerie  Queene,  and  wrote  his  View 
of  the  Present  State  of  Ireland.  There  is  no 
record  of  his  experiences  in  London,  such  as  he 
furnished  to  Raleigh  in  Colin  Clouts  on  his 
return  from  his  former  visit.  Spenser  was  in  no 
fitting  mood  for  telling  a  such  like  happy  tale, 
nor  would  it  have  had  prosperity  in  the  ear 
of  Raleigh. 

32 


EDMUND  SPENSER 

In  Protbalamion,  published  in  1596,  he  writes 

of  his 

Sullein  care 
Through  discontent  of  my  long  fruitlesse  stay- 
in  princes  Court,  and  expectation  vayne 
Of  idle  hopes. 

Raleigh,  also,  had  learned  from  experience  to 
put  no  confidence  in  princes,  and  he  had  severed 
his  connection  with  Ireland  by  the  sale  of  his 
estates  to  the  Earl  of  Cork. 

For  proof  of  the  continuation  of  the  friendship 
which  had  its  origin  in  Spenser's  first  visit  to 
London  we  must  turn  from  him  to  what  was 
written  by  Shakespeare  after  the  death  of 
Spenser.  But  some  things  happened,  of  no 
particular  significance  in  themselves,  but  worth 
noting  in  connection  with  others  of  greater 
importance.  We  have  seen  in  Gabriel  Harvey 
not  only  a  fierce  pamphleteer,  but  also  a  critical 
student  of  Shakespeare's  work,  attracted  to  him 
in  the  first  instance,  like  Spenser,  by  his  poems, 
but  capable  of  appreciating  his  greatness  as  a 
dramatist.  His  entry  into  the  paper  warfare 
in  which  he  engaged  was  by  the  publication  of 
a  pamphlet  entitled  '  Foure  Letters  and  Certain 
Sonnets ;  especially  touching  Robert  Greene, 
and  other  parties  by  him  abused'  (1593).  The 
abuse  was  contained  in  Greene's  Groatsworth  of 

33 


SHAKESPEARE     AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

Wit,  of  which  more  shall  be  said  in  another  chap- 
ter, and  one  of  the  parties  abused  by  Greene  and 
vindicated  by  Harvey  was  William  Shakespeare. 
By  this  abuse  the  wrath  of  Harvey  was  kindled, 
and  he  thus  wrote  of  the  Groatsworth  of  Wit  : 

1  If  his  other  bookes  be  as  holesome  geere  as 
this,  no  marvaile  though  the  gay-man  conceive 
trimlic  of  himself,  and  statelye  scorn  all  besides 
Greene  ;  vile  Greene  !  would  thou  wearest  half 
so  honest  as  the  worst  of  the  foure  whom  thou 
upbraideth,  or  halfe  so  learned  as  the  unlearnedst 
of  the  three.' 

Among  the  sonnets  printed  in  this  pamphlet 
is  one  addressed  by  Spenser  to  Harvey  in  praise 
of  his  i  doomeful  writing '  as  a  critic.  It  is 
addressed  '  to  the  Right  Worshipfull,  my  sin- 
gular good  frend  Mr.  Gabriel  Harvey,  Doctor 
of  the  Lawes,'  and  it  thus  concludes 

Like  a  great  lord  of  peerelesse  liberty 
Lifting  the  good  up  to  high  Honour's  seat, 
And  the  evil  damning  evermore  to  dy, 
For  life  and  death  is  in  thy  doomeful  writing 
So  thy  renovvme  lives  ever  by  endighting. 

Dublin,  this  18  of  July  1586 

your  devoted  frend  during  life 

Edmund  Spenser. 

This  sonnet  was  not  written  in  view  of  Harvey's 
vindication  of  Shakespeare  from  the  attacks  of 

34 


EDMUND   SPENSER 

Greene.  But  he  was  in  constant  communication 
with  Spenser,  and  Harvey  would  not  have  added 
the  sonnet  to  his  pamphlet  if  he  had  not  been 
assured  of  the  sympathy  of  the  writer  in  the 
cause  of  which  he  became  the  champion. 

In  the  year  1599  a  piratical  publisher,  named 
William  Jaggard,  brought  out  a  poetical  mis- 
cellany, entitled  The  Passionate  Pilgrim,  by 
TV.  Shakespeare,  containing  twenty  pieces,  some 
of  which  are  undoubtedly  Shakespeare's.  Among 
these  pieces  is  a  sonnet  addressed,  as  Shake- 
speare's sonnets  were,  to  a  private  friend.  The 
friend  is  a  lover  of  music,  the  sonneteer  a  lover 
of  sweet  poetry  ;    but 

One  god  is  God  of  both,  as  poets  feign. 

To  the  friend  ravished  by  a  heavenly  touch  on 
the  lute,  the  poet  writes 

Spenser  to  me,  whose  deepe  Conceit  is  such, 
As,  passing  all  conceit,  needs  no  defence. 

1  The  secret  of  Spenser's  enduring  popularity 
with  poets  and  lovers  of  poetry  lies  specially  in 
this,  that  he  excels  in  the  poet's  peculiar  gift,  the 
instinct  for  verbal  music.  Shakespeare,  or  the 
author  of  the  sonnet  usually  assigned  to  him, 
felt  and  expressed  this  when  he  drew  the  parallel 
between  "  music  and  sweet  poetry  "  ' 

35 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

Thou  lovest  to  hear  the  sweet  melodious  sound 
That  Phoebus'  lute,  the  queen  of  music,  makes  ; 
And  I  in  deep  delight  am  chiefly  drowned 
W'henas  himself  to  singing  he  betakes. 

'  This  is  an  early  word  in  criticism  of  Spenser, 
and  it  is  the  last  word  about  his  prime  and 
unquestionable  excellence — a  word  in  which  all 
critics  must  agree.'  *  The  sonnet  attributed  to 
Shakespeare  by  Jaggard  had  appeared  in  the 
preceding  year  in  a  volume  entitled  Poems  in 
diverse  Humours  as  the  work  of  Richard  Barn- 
field.  Whether  Barnfield  had  included  in  his 
Poems  an  unclaimed  sonnet  written  by  Shake- 
speare ;  or  Jaggard,  greatly  daring,  had  converted 
to  his  use  a  sonnet  which  Barnfield  had  printed 
as  his  own,  is  a  question  which  cannot  be  here 
discussed.  There  is  a  possibility  that  Barnfield 
was  the  private  friend  to  whom  the  sonnet  was 
addressed,  and  that  with  or  without  the  consent 
of  Shakespeare — to  whom  his  sonnets  were 
unconsidered  trifles — he  included  it  in  his  col- 
lection of  Poems.  '  That  he  had  some  personal 
relations  with  Shakespeare  seems  almost  certain, 
and  the  disputed  authorship  of  the  particular 
pieces  mentioned  above  has  attracted  students 
to  Barnficld's  name.  It  is  no  small  honour  to 
have  written  poems  which  everyone,  until  our 

*  Encyclopedia  Britannica,  tit.  '  Spenser.' 

36 


EDMUND   SPENSER 

own   day,   has   been   content   to   suppose   were 
Shakespeare's.'  * 

Spenser  returned  to  Ireland  early  in  1597, 
a  broken  and  disappointed  man.  The  short 
remainder  of  his  life  was  clouded  in  gloom,  and 
ended  in  tragedy.  In  the  October  of  the  fol- 
lowing year  his  castle  of  Kilcolman  was  burned 
over  his  head  by  the  followers  of  Hugh  O'Neill, 
Earl  of  Tyrone.  Spenser,  with  his  family,  fled 
to  Cork,  whence  he  was  sent  to  London  on  the 
9th  of  December  with  a  despatch  by  Sir  Thomas 
Norris,  the  President  of  Munster.  A  month  after 
his  arrival  in  London,  on  the  1 6th  of  January, 
1598-9,  he  died,  in  the  words  of  Shakespeare, 
'  in  beggary.' 

The  story  was  thus  told  by  Ben  Jonson  to 
Drummond  of  Hawthornden  : 

'  The  Irish  having  rob'd  Spenser's  goods,  and 
burnt  his  house  and  a  little  child  new  born,  he 
and  his  wyfe  escaped  ;  and,  after,  he  died  for 
lake  of  bread  in  King  Street,  and  refused  20  pieces 
sent  to  him  by  my  Lord  of  Essex,  and  said,  He 
was  sorrie  he  had  no  time  to  spend  them.' 

The  exact  facts  of  the  case  must  have  been 
known  to  Ben  Jonson  and  to  Shakespeare,  and 
I  prefer  their  testimony,  as  to  a  matter  of  fact 
within  their  knowledge,   to  the  speculations  of 

*  Mr.  Edmund  Gosse  in  Diet.  Nat.  Biography,  tit.  '  Barnfield.' 

37 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

later  writers  who  are  moved  by  the  improbability 
of  Spenser,  a  favourite  at  Court,  a  pensioner  of 
the  Crown,  the  bearer  of  an  important  despatch, 
with  friends  in  London,  being  allowed  to  die  for 
lack  of  bread.  More  improbable  events  have 
in  fact  occurred  than  the  death  of  Spenser  for 
lack  of  the  nourishment  necessary  in  his  enfeebled 
condition.  His  death,  under  such  circumstances, 
might  well  be  described  by  Jonson  as  '  for 
lake  of  bread,'  and  by  Shakespeare  as  '  in 
beggary.'  * 

That  Spenser's  friends  were  touched  with 
remorse  when  they  realised  the  consequence  of 
their  neglect  adds  to  the  pathos  of  the  tragedy. 
He  was  buried  in  Westminster  Abbey.  Essex, 
whose  failure  to  send  timely  aid  may  have  been 
due  to  Spenser's  unwillingness  to  appeal  for 
assistance,  paid  the  expense  of  the  funeral. 
Camden  tells  us  that  his  hearse  was  attended  by 
poets  ;  and  mournful  elegies  and  poems,  with  the 
pens  that  wrote  them,  were  thrown  into  his 
tomb.  That  Shakespeare  was  among  the  mourn- 
ing poets  who  stood  by  the  grave  of  his  friend  we 
cannot  doubt,  for  he  was  moved  by  the  pity  of 
it   to  depart   from   his   wont,   and   to  introduce 


•  That  Spenser  died  in  poverty  was  generally  known.  It  is  men- 
tioned by  Fletcher,  by  John  Wecvcr,  and  by  the  author  of  The 
Returne  from  Pernassus. 

3» 


EDMUND   SPENSER 

into  one  of  his  plays  an  allusion  to  an  event  of 
the  day. 

A  Midsummer  Night's,  Dream  was  first  printed 
in  1600,  the  year  following  the  death  of  Spenser. 
When  the  strange  story  of  the  midsummer  night 
had  been  told  over,  and  the  lovers  had  come,  full 
of  joy  and  mirth,  Theseus  asks 

What  masques,  what  dances  shall  we  have 
To  wear  away  this  long  age  of  three  hours 
Between  our  after-supper  and  bed-time  f* 

A  paper  is  handed  to  him,  showing  how  many 
sports  were  ripe,  and  of  these  he  was  to  make 
choice.  Theseus  rejects  '  The  battle  with  the 
Centaurs '  and  '  The  riot  of  the  tipsy  Bac- 
chanals.'    He  is  then  tendered 

The  thrice  three  muses  mourning  for  the  death 
Of  Learning,  late  deceased  in  beggary. 

Of  this  he  says — 

That  is  some  satire,  keen  and  critical, 
Not  sorting  with  a  nuptial  ceremony. 

To  our  endless  content  he  then  makes  choice  of 

A  tedious  brief  scene  of  young  Pyramus 
And  his  love  Thisbe ;  very  tragical  mirth, 

to  be  played  by  hard-handed  men  that  work  in 
Athens. 

*  Midsummer  Night's  Dream,  V.  i.  32. 

39 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

The  reference  to  the  thrice  three  mourning 
muses  has  been  accepted  as  an  unmistakable 
reference  to  Spenser's  poem,  entitled  The  Teares 
of  the  Muses,  in  which  each  of  the  Nine  laments 
the  decay  of  the  branch  of  letters  over  which 
she  presides. 

There  was  a  special  propriety  in  the  tragic 
death  of  Spenser  being  mourned  by  the  thrice 
three  muses.  He  was  the  darling  of  the  muses, 
the  '  poet's  poet.'  These  words  of  Charles  Lamb 
describe  the  position  in  the  literary  world  which 
was  held  by  Spenser  after  the  publication  of 
the  first  part  of  the  Faerie  Queene.  Then  by  the 
mourning  muses  the  scene  in  the  Abbey  is  recalled 
when  the  weeping  poets  cast  into  Spenser's  grave 
their  elegies  and  the  pens  with  which  they  were 
written. 

For  the  intimate  friends  of  Spenser  the  words 
of  Shakespeare  would  have  a  special  meaning. 
They  mourned  the  loss,  not  only  of  a  great  poet, 
but  of  *  Learning  late  deceased.'  Lodovick 
Bryskett,  in  his  cottage  near  Dublin,  appealed  to 
Spenser  to  favour  the  company  with  a  discourse 
of  philosophy,  '  knowing  him  to  be  not  only 
perfect  in  the  Greek  tongue,  but  also  very  well 
read  in  Philosophie,  both  morall  and  naturall. 
For,  of  his  love  and  kindness  to  me,  he  encour- 
aged me  long  sithens  to  follow  the  reading  of  the 

40 


EDMUND   SPENSER 

Greeke  tongue  and  offered  me  his  helpe  to  make 
me  understand  it.' 

The  variety  and  extent  of  Spenser's  learning, 
which  was  known  to  those  who  were  admitted 
to  his  friendship,  has  of  later  years  been  realised, 
as  the  result  of  a  careful  study  of  his  writings. 

'  Except  Milton,  and  possibly  Gray,  Spenser 
was  the  most  learned  of  English  poets,  and  signs 
of  his  multifarious  reading  in  the  classics,  and 
modern  French  and  Italian  literature  abound  in 
his  writings.'  * 

What  more  fitting  theme  for  a  '  satire,  keen 
and  critical,'  than  the  death  in  beggary  of  one 
like  Spenser,  the  darling  of  the  muses,  the 
favourite  of  the  Queen,  and  high  in  office  ;  the 
pompous  funeral  in  Westminster  Abbey  ;  the 
broad  pieces,  gifts  well  meant  but  all  too  late  ; 
the  poets  with  their  elegies,  deploring  in  good 
set  terms  the  loss  of  him  whom  they  suffered  to 
die — from  want  of  thought  and  not  of  heart,  we 
may  well  believe — neglected  and  uncared  ?  Well 
might  Theseus  reject  the  theme  as  '  not  sorting 
with  a  nuptial  ceremony.' 

Professor  Masson,  in  his  Shakespeare  Personally, 
notes  a  certain  respect  in  which  Shakespeare 
differed  from  his  contemporaries.      '  What   do 

*  '  Life  of  Spenser,'  in  the  Diet.  Nat.  Biography,  by  Professor  J  .W. 
Hales  and  Sir  Sidney  Lee. 

41 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

we  find  them,  one  and  all,  doing — Spenser, 
Chapman,  Drayton,  Daniel,  Nash,  Donne,  Ben 
Jonson,  Marston,  Dekker,  Chettle,  and  other 
known  poets  and  dramatists  of  rank,  besides  the 
small  fry  of  professed  epigrammatists,  like  Owen 
and  John  Davies,  of  Hereford  ?  Writing  verses 
to  or  about  each  other,  commendatory  poems  on 
each  other's  works,  mutual  invectives  and  lam- 
poons, in  prologues  to  their  plays  or  otherwise, 
epistles  and  dedications  of  compliment  to  eminent 
noblemen  and  courtiers,  epitaphs  on  noblemen  or 
ladies  just  dead,  and  comments  in  a  thousand 
forms  on  the  incidents  of  the  day.  In  the  midst 
of  all  this  crossfire  of  epistles,  epigrams,  and 
poems  of  occasion,  stood  Shakespeare  ;  coming 
in,  too,  for  his  own  share  of  notice  in  them — for 
just  a  little  of  the  invective  and  for  a  very  great 
deal  of  the  eulogy.  But  he  would  not  be  brought 
to  return  a  shot.  .  .  .  From  occurrence  litera- 
ture of  any  kind  Shakespeare  seems  to  have 
systematically  shrunk.'  * 

Even  the  death  of  Elizabeth,  a  theme  wel- 
comed by  other  poets  of  the  day,  is  unmarked  by 
a  line  by  him.  This  was  noted  as  strange  by 
Chettle,  who  in  England's  Mourning  Garment 
(1603)  wrote 

•  Shakespeare  Personally,  by  David  Masson.     Edited  and  arranged 
by  Rosaline  Masson. 

42 


EDMUND  SPENSER 

Nor  doth  the  siluer-tonge'd  Melicert 
Drop  from  his  honied  muse  one  sable  teare 
To  mourne  her  death  that  graced  his  desert 
And  to  his  laies  opened  her  royal  ear. 
Shepheard,  remember  our  Elizabeth 
And  sing  her  Rape,  done  by  that  Tarquin,  Death. 

That  Shakespeare  departed  from  his  custom 
when  he  introduced  into  A  Midsummer  Night's 
Dream  a  reference  to  the  death  of  Spenser,  shows 
how  profoundly  he  was  moved  by  the  personality 
of  the  man,  the  beauty  of  his  poetry,  the  extent 
of  his  learning,  and  the  tragedy  of  his  death. 
The  death  of  Marlowe  is  the  occasion  of  one 
other  reference  to  an  event  of  the  day  to  be  found 
in  his  works.  But  Spenser  exerted  no  such 
influence  on  the  development  of  the  art  of  Shake- 
speare as  was  due  to  Marlowe.  There  is  no 
passage  written  by  Shakespeare  in  which  we 
catch  the  faintest  echo  of  the  poetry  of  Spenser. 
There  is  indeed  one  speech  which,  but  for 
Spenser,  would  not  have  been  written.  It  is  a 
reminiscence  of  Spenser  ;  not  of  the  poet,  but  of 
the  Irish  official. 

Spenser  was  not  only  a  great  poet,  he  was  also 
an  Irish  official,  with  a  clear  and  definite  Irish 
policy.  It  was  the  policy  of  his  patron  and 
friend,  Arthur  Lord  Grey,  of  Wilton.  Lord 
Grey  was  recalled  in  1582,  two  years  after  his 

43 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

appointment  as  Lord  Deputy ;  but  Spenser 
remained  constant  to  his  political  creed,  and 
throughout  his  life  it  was  his  mission,  with 
chivalrous  loyalty  to  defend  the  policy  and 
vindicate  the  memory  of  Grey.  This  he  did  in 
immortal  verse  in  the  fifth  book  of  his  Faerie 
Queene,  and  in  indifferent  prose  in  his  View  of  the 
Present  State  of  Ireland,  written  in  1587,  after 
the  death  of  Grey.  This  is  the  policy  that 
Shakespeare,  with  his  marvellous  power  of  con- 
densation, has  expressed  in  four  lines,  put  into 
the  mouth  of  Richard,  when  departing  for 
Ireland  : 

Now  for  our  Irish  wars  : 
We  must  supplant  those  rough  rug-headed  kerns 
Which  live  like  venom  where  no  venom  else 
But  only  they  have  privilege  to  live.* 

Whence  did  Shakespeare  derive  this  policy  : 
War,  to  be  followed  by  the  supplanting  of  the 
native  Irish  ?  And  how  comes  he  to  speak  of 
them  with  contempt  as  '  rough,  rug-headed 
kerns,'  and  with  hatred,  as  venom  that  had 
escaped  expulsion  at  the  hands  of  St.  Patrick  ? 
Questions  to  be  asked — for  Shakespeare  is  wont 
to  put  into  the  mouths  of  characters  in  his 
dramas   an   expression   of   his   personal   feelings 

•  King  Richard  II.,  II.,  i.  155. 

44 


EDMUND   SPENSER 

and  experiences,  and  if  a  different  explanation 
of  this  passage  can  be  found  it  would  be  welcome. 
When  Spenser  came  to  London  with  Raleigh 
in  1589  he  brought  with  him  three  completed 
books  of  the  Faerie  Queene.  What  he  calls  '  his 
whole  intention  in  the  course  of  this  worke  ' 
had  been  long  since  thought  out,  and  he  was  then 
at  work  on  the  next  succeeding  books,  the 
Legends  of  Friendship  and  of  Justice.  Spenser 
was  always  ready  to  take  his  friends  into  his 
confidence  as  to  the  literary  work  in  which  he 
was  engaged,  often  far  in  advance  of  its  com- 
pletion. He  had  read  the  early  books  of  his 
poem  to  Raleigh  in  Kilcolman  castle,  and  '  some 
parcels  '  of  the  Faerie  Queene  had  been  seen  by 
some  of  the  company  assembled  in  Bryskett's 
cottage  near  Dublin — a  prelate,  a  lawyer,  four 
soldiers,  and  '  M.  Smith,  apothecary.'  If 
Spenser  was  willing  to  expound  his  intention 
to  this  assembly,  he  was  not  likely  to  be  more 
reticent  in  the  company  of  the  Shepherds  who 
served  Cynthia,  and  when  Aetion,  or  another, 
put  to  him  a  question  which  has  been  repeated 
throughout  the  centuries  to  succeeding  genera- 
tions of  Irish  officials  on  their  visits  to  London, 
and  asked  him  to  give  the  company  his  view  of 
the  present  state  of  Ireland,  we  know  what  view 
he  presented,  and  if  he  did  not  show  them  some 

45 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

parcels  of  his  forthcoming  fifth  book,  what  he 
said  was  understood  and  treasured  by  at  least 
one  of  his  hearers. 

The  view  set  forth  in  the  treatise  written  in 
1587  is  presented  in  allegorical  form  in  the  fifth 
book  of  the  Faerie  Queene.  The  legend  of 
Artegall,  or  of  Justice,  is  the  story  of  Arthur 
Lord  Grey's  mission  to  Ireland,  his  policy  and 
his  recall.  The  allegory  in  many  parts  of  the 
poem  is  obscure,  and  the  riddle  is  not  easily 
solved.  It  is  generally  difficult,  and  often 
impossible,  to  discover  the  counterparts  in  real 
life  of  the  allegorical  personages  of  the  poem. 
But  in  regard  to  two  we  are  left  without  doubt  : 
the  Faerie  Queen  is  Elizabeth,  and  Artegall, 
Arthur  Lord  Grey. 

A  letter  from  the  author  to  Sir  Walter  Raleigh, 
'  expounding  his  whole  intention  in  the  course 
of  this  worke,'  is  prefixed  to  the  edition  of  the 
three  books  published  in  1581.  The  Faerie 
Queen  by  whose  excellent  beauty  when  seen  in 
a  vision  King  Arthur  is  ravished,  and  awaking 
sets  forth  to  seek  her,  is  Faerie  land,  is  Glory. 
*  In  that  Faerie  Queene  I  mean  glory  in  my 
generall  intention,  but  in  my  particular  I  con- 
ceive the  most  excellent  and  glorious  person  of 
our  soveraine  the  Queene,  and  her  kingdome  in 
Faerie  land.' 

46 


EDMUND   SPENSER 

The  Faerie  Queene  was  to  be  '  disposed  into 
twelve  books,  fashioning  xn.  morall  vertues.' 
Of  each  virtue  a  knight  is  the  patron,  whose 
adventures  form  the  legend  of  the  book.  This 
is  the  general  intention.  The  particular  inten- 
tion as  to  the  Faerie  Queen  is  to  identify  her 
with  Elizabeth,  and  as  to  Artegall  to  identify 
him  with  Arthur  Lord  Grey.  Artegall  is  sent 
by  the  Faerie  Queen  (Elizabeth)  to  rescue  Irena 
(Ireland)  from  suffering  under  the  power  of 
wrong  (Grantorto).  Armed  with  Chryseas,  the 
keen  sword  of  Justice,  and  accompanied  by  Talus 
and  the  iron  flail  of  force,  Artegall  puts  an  end 
to  wrongdoing.  He  then  abode  with  fair  Irena, 
when  his  study  was  to  deal  Justice. 

And  day  and  night  employ'd  his  busie  paine 
How  to  reform  that  ragged  common-weale 

But,  ere  he  coulde  reforme  it  thoroughly 

He  through  occasion  called  was  away 

To  Faerie  Court,  that  of  necessity 

His  course  of  Justice  he  was  forst  to  stay 

And  Talus  to  revoke  from  the  right  way 

In  which  he  was  that  Realme  for  to  redresse  ; 

But  envie's  cloud  still  dimmeth  vertue's  ray. 

So  having  freed  Irena  from  distresse 

He  tooke  his  leave  of  her  then  left  in  heavinesse. 

This  was   the  doing  of  '  two  old  ill  favour'd 
Hags,'  Envie  and  Detraction — 

47 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

Combyned  in  one 
And  linct  together  against  Sir  Artegall 

•  •  •  •  • 

Besides,  into  themselves  they  gotten  had 

A  monster,  which  the  Blatant  Beast  they  call. 

Disregarding  the  assaults  of  Envie  and  Detrac- 
tion, and  the  barking  and  baying  of  the  Blatant 
Beast,  Artegall 

Still  the  way  did  hold 
To  Faerie  Court ;   when  what  him  fell  shall  else 
be  told. 

This  is  the  story  of  the  recall  of  Grey.  He 
died  in  1593,  and  the  rest  is  silence. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  supply  the  explanation  of 
the  policy  of  Arthur  which  was  given  to  the 
listening  Shepherds,  when  the  poet,  as  was  his 
wont,  explained  the  general  and  particular  inten- 
tion of  the  Legend  of  Justice.  But  for  this  we 
must  turn  to  the  View. 

Spenser's  Irish  policy,  like  that  of  Richard  II., 
began  with  war,  and  ended  in  '  supplanting.' 
In  the  View  Eudoxus  suggests  that  the  reforma- 
tion of  the  realm  might  be  effected  by  '  making 
of  good  lawes,  and  establishing  of  new  statutes, 
with  sharpe  penalties  and  punishments,  for 
amending  of  all  that  is  presently  amisse.' 
Irenasus,  by  whom  Spenser  speaks,  says — 
<  48 


EDMUND   SPENSER 

But  all  the  realme  is  first  to  be  reformed,  and  lawes 
are  afterwards  to  be  made  for  keeping  and  continuing  it 
in  the  reformed  estate. 

Eudox.  How  then  doe  you  think  is  the  reformation 
thereof  to  be  begunne,  if  not  by  lawes  and  ordinances  ? 

Iren.  Even  by  the  sword  ;  for  all  these  evils  must 
first  be  cut  away  by  a  strong  hand,  before  any  good  can 
be  planted. 

Later  on  Irenaeus  develops  his  scheme  of 
supplanting.  '  All  the  lands  will  I  give  unto 
Englishmen  I  will  haue  drawne  thither,  who  shall 
haue  the  same  with  such  estates  as  shall  bee 
thought  meete,  and  for  such  rent  as  shall  eft- 
soones  be  rated  ;  and  under  every  of  those 
Englishmen  will  I  place  some  of  those  Irish  to 
be  tennants  for  a  certaine  rent,  according  to  the 
quantity  of  such  land  as  every  man  shall  have 
allotted  unto  him,  and  shalbe  found  able  to 
wield,  wherein  this  speciall  regard  shall  be  had, 
that  in  no  place  under  any  land-lord  there  shall 
be  many  of  them  placed  together,  but  dispersed 
wide  from  their  acquaintance,  and  scattered 
farre  abroad  thorough  all  the  country.' 

Thus  would  the  tribal  system  be  broken  up, 
and  the  kerns  could  no  longer  '  practice  or  con- 
spire what  they  will.'  Rough  and  shag-headed 
they  were  in  the  eyes  of  Spenser,  for  he  wrote 
of  their  '  long  glippes,  which  is  a  thicke  curled 

49 


SHAKESPEARE  AND  HIS   FELLOWS 

bush  of  hair,  hanging  downe  over  their  eyes,  and 
monstrously  disguising  them,  which  arc  both 
very  bad  and  hurtful.' 

In  the  View  Spenser  recalls  how  when  '  that 
good  Lord  Grey,  after  long  travell  and  many 
perilous  assayes,  had  brought  things  almost  to 
this  passe  that  the  country  was  ready  for  refor- 
mation,' the  Queen  '  being  by  nature  full  of 
moving  and  clemency,'  listened  to  the  complaint 
against  Grey,  that  '  he  was  a  bloodie  man,  and 
minded  not  the  life  of  her  subjects  no  more  than 
dogges,'  and  '  all  suddenly  turned  topside- 
turvey  ;  the  noble  Lord  eft-soones  was  blamed  ; 
the  wretched  people  pitticd  ;  and  new  counsells 
plotted,  in  which  it  was  concluded  that  a  general 
pardon  should  be  sent  over  to  all  that  would 
accept  of  it,  upon  which  all  former  purposes 
were  blanked,  the  governor  at  a  bay,  and  not 
only  all  that  great  and  long  change  which  she 
had  before  beene  at  quite  lost  and  cancelled, 
but  also  all  that  hope  of  good  which  was 
even  at  the  doore  put  back  and  cleane  frus- 
trated.' 

This  is  a  prose  version  of  the  story  of  Grey's 
recall  as  it  is  told  in  the  fifth  book  of  the  Faerie 
Queene. 

If  Shakespeare  did  not  derive  from  converse 
with  Spenser  the  Irish  policy  which  he  put  into 

50 


EDMUND   SPENSER 

the  mouth  of  Richard,  I  know  not  from  what 
contemporary  source  it  was  borrowed. 

But  why  does  Richard  speak  with  hatred  of 
the  native  Irish,  as  the  only  venom  which  had 
escaped  expulsion  by  St.  Patrick  ?  In  a  book 
well  known  to  Spenser — for  he  quotes  from  it 
more  than  once  in  his  View — Stanyhurst's 
Description  of  Ireland,  printed  in  Holinshed's 
Chronicles  (1577),  tne  writer,  telling  how  '  Saint 
Patricke  was  moved  to  expell  all  the  venemous 
wormes  out  of  Ireland,'  quotes  from  the 
Dialogues  of  Alanus  Copus  these  words  :  '  Dici 
fortasse  inde  a  nonnullis  solet  nihil  esse  in 
Hibernia  venenati  praeter  ipsos  homines.' 
Stanyhurst  quotes  these  words  with  indignation. 
But  Spenser  may  well  have  treasured  them  with 
different  feelings,  and  repeated  them  to  his 
friend.  He  admired  the  natural  beauties  and 
the  abundant  resources  of  Ireland,  and  found 
'  sweet  wit  and  good  invention  '  in  her  bardic 
literature,  but  it  must  be  acknowledged  that 
his  feelings  towards  the  native  Irish  were  such 
as  might  have  found  expression  in  the  saying 
recorded  by  Alanus  Copus.  Whether  Shake- 
speare learned  this  saying  from  Spenser,  or  from 
Stanyhurst,  whose  description,  with  other  parts 
of  Holinshed,  he  had  studied  with  care,  matters 
not.     It  is  not  to  be  taken  as  the  result  of  his 


5i 


E   2 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

own  experience,  but  as  a  saying  that  might  with 
dramatic  propriety  be  attributed  to  Richard. 

The  poetic  element  in  the  character  of  the 
second  Richard  was  noted  by  Coleridge  and  by 
Professor  Dowden.  To  Sir  Walter  Raleigh, 
Richard  is  poetry  itself.  '  It  is  difficult  to 
condemn  Richard  without  taking  sides  against 
poetry.  He  has  a  delicate  and  prolific  fancy, 
which  flows  into  many  dream-shapes  in  the 
prison  ;  a  wide  and  true  imagination,  which 
expresses  itself  in  his  great  speech  on  the  mon- 
archy of  Death  ;  and  a  deep  discernment  of 
tragic  issues,  which  gives  thrilling  effect  to  his 
bitterest  outcry.'  It  may  be  deserving  of  a 
passing  note  that  it  is  to  this  most  poetic  of 
kings  that  Shakespeare  attributes  the  ruthless 
policy  of  warfare  and  supplanting  which  was 
that  of  his  friend,  the  poet's  poet,  Spenser. 

Spenser  was  attracted  to  Shakespeare  by  the 
quality  in  his  nature,  to  which,  in  his  days,  the 
word  '  gentle  '  was  applied,  not  less  than  by 
the  high  thoughts  invention,  and  heroic  strain 
of  a  muse  which  gave  promise  of  an  eagle  flight. 
It  was  this  quality,  so  early  apprehended  by 
Spenser,  that  won  for  Shakespeare  throughout 
his  life  the  love  of  his  fellows.  By  bearing 
this  fact  in  mind  as  we  trace  his  relations  with 
them,  strange  errors  and  misconceptions  may  be 

52 


EDMUND   SPENSER 

avoided.  And  after  his  death  this  was  the 
thought  uppermost  in  the  mind  of  Ben  Jonson, 
when  he  wrote  of  the  portrait  prefixed  to  the 
folio  of  1623 

This  figure  that  thou  here  seest  put, 
It  was  for  gentle  Shakespeare  cut. 


53 


THE    PLAYERS 

Shakespeare  by  his  will  left  '  to  my  fcllowcs, 
John  Hcmyngcs,  Richard  Burbagc,  and  Henry 
Cundcll  xxvj's  viii  d  a  peece  to  buy  them  ringes.' 
A  good  many  years  before,  Burbage,  with  Kempe, 
had  gloried  in  the  triumph  of  '  our  fellow 
Shakespeare  '  over  the  University  pens,  and 
over  Ben  Jonson  too ;  and  some  years  after  the 
death  of  Shakespeare  Ben  Jonson  told  how  the 
players,  in  their  devotion  to  the  memory  of  their 
fellow,  regarded  as  a  '  malevolent  speech  '  one 
that  Ben  Jonson  had  intended  as  literary  criti- 
cism, when  he  expressed  a  wish  that  Shakespeare 
had  blotted  a  thousand  lines.* 

The  pride  of  the  players  in  the  success  of  their 
fellow  Shakespeare  as  a  dramatist,  outstripping 
even  the  great  Ben  Jonson,  was  unalloyed  by  any 
feeling  of  jealousy.  He  had  become  rich  and 
famous  in  the  literary  world.  He  had  been 
the  subject  of  courtly  favour  and  of  the  patronage 
of  the  great,  before  he  retired  to  his  native  town 
to  end  his  days  in  affluence  and  repute,  a  gentle- 

•  Timber,  or  Discoveries  made  upon  Men  and  Matter. 

54 


THE   PLAYERS 

man  of  coat  armour.  But  his  was  not  a  nature 
to  be  spoiled  by  success,  and  his  last  thoughts 
were  not  for  powerful  patrons  or  literary  mag- 
nates, but  for  his  fellow  players,  John  Hem- 
ing  and  Henry  Condell,  with  Richard  Burbage 
the  impersonator  of  his  greatest  characters. 

The  world  owes  much  to  the  good  fellowship 
between    Shakespeare    and    the    players,    which 
endured  throughout  his  life.     For  seven  years 
after     his     death     Mr.    William     Shakespeare's 
Comedies,   Histories,   and    Tragedies  were    pub- 
lished '  according  to  the  True  Originall  copies  ' 
by  John  Heming  and  Henry  Condell.     Richard 
Burbage  had  died  in  1 619.     In  dedicating  them 
to  the  Earls  of  Pembroke  and  Montgomery,  who 
had  '  prosequuted  both  them,  and  their  Authour 
living  with  so  much  favour,'  the  editors  write  : 
i  We  have  but  collected  them,  an  office  to  the 
dead,  to  procure  his  orphanes,  guardians  ;  with- 
out   ambition    either    of    selfe-profit,    or    fame  ; 
only  to  keepe  the  memory  of  so  worthy  a  Friend 
&    Fellow   alive,    as   was    our    Shakespeare,    by 
humble  offer  of  his  player  to  your  most  noble 
patronage.' 

Heming  and  Condell  were  not  altogether  blind 
to  the  priceless  literary  value  of  the  gift  that 
they  were  presenting  to  the  world.  But  the 
thought   uppermost   in   their   minds   was   piety 

55 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

towards  the  man  whom  they  loved.  That 
piety  was  recognised  as  the  motive  by  which 
they  were  impelled,  we  learn  from  verses  prefixed 
to  the  First  Folio,  written  by  Leonard  Digges, 
a  fair  representative  of  the  literary  world  of  the 
day, 

Shakespeare,  at  length,  thy  pious  fellowes  give 
The  world  thy  workes. 

-  Shakespeare  had  been  dead  for  seven  years, 
and  the  world  of  letters  gave  no  sign.  The 
greatest  treasures  of  English  literature,  perhaps 
of  all  literature,  were  either  tossing  about  in  the 
Globe  theatre,  or  circulating  in  imperfect  copies 
surreptitiously  obtained,  and,  for  all  the  literary 
world  cared,  they  would  have  so  remained.  And 
yet  at  that  time  the  literary  world  of  London 
included  Jonson,  Drayton,  Camden,  Fletcher, 
and  such  lesser  lights  as  Leonard  Digges  and 
Hugh  Holland,  each  of  whom  was  in  some  way 
connected  with  Shakespeare  or  his  works.  It 
did  not  occur  to  Shakespeare's  literary  fellows 
that  it  might  be  worth  while  to  edit  in  a  collected 
form  the  plays  that  had  been  printed  in  pirated 
and  inaccurate  editions,  or  to  make  some  inquiry 
about  the  dramas  in  manuscript  that  were  at  the 
mercy  of  the  players  at  the  Globe.  The  assist- 
ance of  any  one  of  these  men  would  have  saved 

56 


THE    PLAYERS 

the  pious  editors  of  the  First  Folio  from  the 
manifest  and  glaring  errors  which  mar  the  text 
of  the  Folio,  and  have  blinded  the  eyes  of  many 
generations  of  critics  to  the  true  position  of  that 
edition,  and  to  its  claims  upon  their  attention. 

There  is  some  foundation  for  the  suggestion 
that    Shakespeare    had    intended    to    give    his 
dramas  to  the  world  in  a  collected  form,  brought 
out  with  the  care  that  he  had  bestowed  on  his 
poems,  and  that  his  work  was  cut  short  by  death. 
The  editors  of  the  Folio  in  their  dedication  ask 
for  indulgence,  the  author  '  not  having  the  fate, 
common  with  some,  to  be  exequutor  to  his  owne 
writings,'    and    in    their  address  to  '  the  great 
variety  of    Readers  '    these  words    occur  :    '  It 
had  bene  a  thing,  we  confesse,  worthie  to  have 
bene  wished,  that  the  Author  himselfe  had  liu'd 
to  haue  set  forth,  and  overseen  his  owne  writings  ; 
But  since  it  hath  bin  ordain'd  otherwise,  and  he 
by  death  departed  from  that  right,  we  pray  you 
do  not  envie  his  Friends,  the  office  of  their  care, 
and  paine,  to  haue  collected  and  publish'd  them.' 
These  words  are  consistent  with  the  supposition 
that  Shakespeare's  death,  which  was  sudden  and 
unexpected,  cut  short  the  work  in  which  he  was 
engaged   of   the   collection   and   revision   of  his 
plays.     But,   on   the   other   hand,   there   is   the 
fact   that   he   never  interfered   to   prevent   the 

57 


SHAKESPEARE   AND  HIS   FELLOWS 

printing  of  pirated  and  corrupt  versions  of  his 
greatest  works,  and  permitted  the  manuscripts 
to  remain  with  the  managers  of  the  Globe 
Theatre,  to  be  altered  from  time  to  time,  as  the 
exigencies  of  the  playhouse  might  require  ;  for 
it  was  as  acting  copies,  and  not  as  manuscripts 
revised  and  corrected  for  the  press,  that  the  true 
originals  were  received  at  the  hands  of  the 
author. 

However  this  may  be,  the  fact  remains  that 
for  the  preservation  and  printing  of  these  copies 
we  arc  indebted  to  the  piety  of  Shakespeare's 
fellow  players,  and  if  to  carelessness  about  the 
preservation  of  his  plays  Shakespeare  had  added 
the  aggressive  and  unlovely  personality  of  Ben 
Jonson — ever  ready,  according  to  Drummond,  to 
sacrifice  a  friend  to  a  jest — it  is  more  than  prob- 
able that  most,  if  not  all  of  them,  would  have  been 
lost    to    the    world.      Of    the    thirty-six    plays 
included   in   the   First   Folio,   sixteen   had   been 
published    in   quarto   from   '  diverse  stolne  and 
surreptitious  copies,  maimed  and  deformed  by 
the  frauds  and  stealthcs  of  incurious  impostors 
that  expos'd  them.'     Among  the  twenty  printed 
for  the  first  time  in  the  Folio  are  The  Tempest, 
As  Tou  Like  It,  Twelfth  Night,  The  Winter's  Tale, 
King  Henry   VIII.,   Coriolanus,  'Julius  Ccesar, 
Macbeth,  Antony  and  Cleopatra,  and  Cymbeline.  - 

58 


THE   PLAYERS 

If  the  literature  of  Shakespeare  criticism  could 
find  its  way  to  the  Elysian  fields,  in  no  part  would 
Shakespeare  be  more  concerned  than  in  what 
has  been  written  of  his  fellows,  Heming  and 
Condell. 

He  would  not  quarrel  with  Mr.  Churton 
Collins's  criticism  of  the  text  of  the  First  Folio — 
'  words  the  restoration  of  which  is  obvious  left 
unsupplied,  unfamiliar  words  transliterated  into 
gibberish ;  punctuation  as  it  pleases  chance  ; 
sentences  with  the  subordinate  clauses  higgledy- 
piggledy  or  upside  down ;  lines  transposed ; 
verse  printed  as  prose,  and  prose  as  verse  ; 
speeches  belonging  to  one  character  given  to 
another  ;  stage  directions  incorporated  in  the 
text  ;  actors'  names  suddenly  substituted  for 
those  of  the  dramatis  personae  ;  scenes  and  acts 
left  unindicated  or  indicated  wrongly — all  this 
and  more  makes  the  text  of  the  First  Folio  one 
of  the  most  portentous  specimens  of  typography 
and  editing  in  existence.'  * 

All  this  is  true,  for  two  honest  players,  no 
literary  aid  being  forthcoming,  simply  handed 
over  to  Isaac  Haggard  and  Edward  Blount,  two 
honest  printers,  manuscripts  which  they  knew 
to  have  been  honestly  come  by,  to  put  them 
into  print  as  best  they  could.     No  one  but  the 

*  Essays  and  Studies. 

59 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

author  is  blamablc  for  the  inevitable  result. 
And  if  Shakespeare,  reading  this  criticism  of 
their  handiwork,  chanced  to  be  in  the  frame 
of  mind  attributed  to  him  by  Pope  when  he 
wrote 

There  hapless  Shakespeare  yet  of  Tibbald  sore 
Wish'd  he  had  blotted  for  himself  before, 

he  might  well  regret  that  he  had  not  printed 
for  himself  before.  But  he  would  learn  with 
righteous  indignation  that  doubts  had  been 
cast  on  the  honesty  and  good  faith  of  his  pious 
fellows. 

'  There  is  no  doubt,'  writes  Mr.  Spalding,* 
'  that  they  could  at  least  have  enumerated 
Shakespeare's  works  correctly  ;  but  their  know- 
ledge and  design  of  profit  did  not  suit  each  other.' 
They  must,  he  points  out,  be  presumed  to  have 
known  perfectly  what  works  were,  and  what 
were  not  Shakespeare's.  But  these  men  were 
'  unscrupulous  and  unfair '  in  their  selection. 
Their  whole  conduct  '  inspires  distrust,'  and 
justifies  a  critic  in  throwing  the  First  Folio 
entirely  out  of  view  as  a  *  dishonest  '  and,  it 
might  be  added,  hypocritical  '  attempt  to  put 
down  editions  of  about  fifteen  separate  plays  of 
Shakespeare,  previously  printed  in  quarto,  which, 

*  Letter  on  Authorship  of  Two  Noble  Kinsmen. 
60 


THE   PLAYERS 

though  in  most  respects  more  accurate  than 
their  successors,  had  evidently  been  taken  from 
stolen  copies.' 

The  profession  of  the  editors  of  the  Folio  that 
they  had  done  their  work  '  without  ambition 
either  of  selfe-profit  or  fame  '  was  pure  hypocrisy, 
although,  as  Mr.  Halliwell-Phillips  pointed  out,* 
they,  *  in  giving  unreservedly  to  the  public 
valuable  literary  property  of  which  they  were 
sole  proprietors,  made  a  sacrifice  for  which  the 
profits  on  the  sale  of  the  Folio  would  not  com- 
pensate them.' 

The  language  used  by  the  editors  of  the  first 
edition  of  the  Cambridge  Shakespeare,  Mr.  W.  G. 
Clarke  and  Mr.  J.  Glover,  is  much  to  the  same 
effect.  Their  preface  is  prefixed  to  one  of  the 
best  editions  of  Shakespeare's  works,  the  Cam- 
bridge Shakespeare  of  1893,  edited  by  the  late 
Dr.  William  Aldis  Wright ;  but  he  is  not  respon- 
sible for  language  used  by  his  predecessors.  The 
editors  are  guilty  of  suggestio  falsi  in  conveying 
to  the  public  the  idea  that  the  Folio  was  printed 
from  original  manuscripts  received  by  them  at 
the  hands  of  the  author.  If  the  editors  were 
guilty  of  the  fraudulent  puffing  of  their  own 
wares,  coupled  with  '  denunciation  of  editions 
which  they  knew  to  be  superior  of  their  own,' 

*  Outlines  of  the  Life  of  Shakespeare. 
6l 


SHAKESPEARE  AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

the  plainer  language  used  by  Mr.  Spalding  would 
be  fully  justified. 

Criticism  is  foreign  to  these  pages,  but  they 
arc  conversant  with  Shakespeare's  relations  with 
his  fellows,  and  it  is  satisfactory  to  note  that  he 
has  been  acquitted  by  more  enlightened  critics 
of  having  bestowed  his  love — testified,  as  was 
then  the  custom,  by  the  gift  of  mourning  rings — 
upon  a  pair  of  fraudulent  knaves.  The  attitude 
of  modern  editors  towards  the  Folio  is  totally 
different.  Sir  Sidney  Lee  writes  :  '  Whatever 
be  the  First  Folio's  typographical  and  editorial 
imperfections,  it  is  the  fountain-head  of  know- 
ledge of  Shakespeare's  complete  achievement.'  * 
Mr.  Grant  White,  in  his  historical  sketch  of  the 
text  of  Shakespeare  prefixed  to  the  edition  of  his 
works  edited  by  him  (Boston,  1865),  writes  : 
'  Indeed,  such  is  the  authority  given  to  this 
volume  by  the  auspices  under  which  it  appeared, 
that  had  it  been  thoroughly  prepared  for  the 
press  and  printed  with  care,  there  would  have 
been  no  appeal  from  its  text,  and  editorial  labour 
upon  Shakespeare's  plays,  except  that  of  an  his- 
torical or  exegetical  nature,  would  have  been  not 
only  without  justification,  but  without  oppor- 
tunity.' The  text  of  the  late  Mr.  Horace  Furness's 
monumental  Variorum  Shakespeare  is  the  First 

•  Life  of  Shakespeare,  p.  557. 
62 


THE   PLAYERS 

Folio  the  spelling  of  which  he  retains.  An  edition 
of  the  plays  by  Charlotte  Porter  and  H.  A.  Clarke, 
with  a  general  introduction  by  Mr.  Churton 
Collins,  has  been  published,  in  which  the  text 
of  the  Folio,  with  the  original  spelling,  is  adopted, 
with  no  more  than  necessary  corrections.  Sir 
Walter  Raleigh,  in  a  suggestive  and  interesting 
volume  on  Shakespeare  contributed  to  the 
English  Men  of  Letters  series,  writes  :  '  There 
is  no  escape  from  the  Folio  ;  for  twenty  of  the 
plays  it  is  one  sole  authority  ;  for  most  of  the 
remainder  it  is  the  best  authority  that  we  shall 
ever  know.' 

— Shakespeare's  fellowship  with  the  players  of 
his  day  dated  from  shortly  after  his  advent  to 
London,  and  endured  to  the  day  of  his  death. 
They  had  rescued  him  from  the  mean  condition 
to  which  he  had  fallen,  and  they  took  pride  in 
his  success.  What  manner  of  men  these  players 
were  is  an  inquiry  the  answer  to  which  may  aid 
us,  in  some  degree,  in  understanding  the  character 
of  their  associate  and  friend. 

The  players  who  were  most  closely  associated 
with  Shakespeare  were  Heming,  Burbage  and 
Condell.  Their  names  are  associated  with  his 
in  the  licences  granted  to  the  players  at  the 
Globe  theatre,  and  they  are  all  remembered  by 
him  in  his  will.  ~~ 

63 


SHAKESPEARE  AND  HIS   FELLOWS 

With  Burbagc,  the  impersonator  of  his  greatest 
creations  in  tragedy — Hamlet,  Lear  and  Othello 
— he  appears  to  have  been  most  intimately  asso- 
ciated. A  merry  tale,  of  a  kind  that  is  often 
current  about  play-actors,  in  which  their  names 
are  connected,  is  recorded  in  Manningham's 
Diary  of  the  date  of  the  13th  of  March,  1601. 
And  after  Shakespeare  had  settled  in  Stratford 
we  find  him,  in  one  of  his  visits  to  London, 
engaged  with  Burbage  in  devising  for  the  Earl 
of  Portland  the  kind  of  emblematic  decoration 
known  as  impresa,  for  his  equipment  at  a  tourna- 
ment to  be  held  at  Whitehall. 

We  owe  it  to  the  pious  care  of  Malone,  followed 
by  Sir  Sidney  Lee  and  the  late  Mr.  Joseph 
Knight,  that  we  have  been  granted  some  insight 
into  the  character  of  the  men  who  were,  in  a 
special  sense,  the  fellows  and  friends  of  Shake- 
speare. 

Heming  died  in  1630  in  his  house  in  St.  Mary's, 
Aldenbury,  where  he  and  his  wife  had  lived 
together  for  thirty  years,  and  where  he  served 
as  churchwarden  in  1608.  He  left  a  large  family, 
for  whom  he  made  provision  by  his  will,  and  that 
he  gave  them  a  good  education  is  evident,  for 
his  ninth  son,  William,  who  is  also  noticed  in  the 
Dictionary  of  National  Biography,  was  educated 
at  Westminster  School,  whence  in  1621  he  was 

64 


THE   PLAYERS 

elected  a  King's  scholar  at  Christ  Church, 
Oxford. 

Condell  also  lived  in  the  parish  of  St.  Mary, 
in  good  repute,  as  we  must  infer  from  the  fact 
that  he  was  sidesman  in  1606,  and  churchwarden 
in  1 61 8.  He  died  in  his  country  house  at 
Fulham  in  1627,  having  by  his  will,  in  which  he 
styles  himself  '  gentleman,'  disposed  of  con- 
siderable property,  in  addition  to  shares  in  the 
Blackfriars  and  Globe  theatres. 

Of  Burbage,  the  most  famous  actor  of  his 
own,  or  perhaps  of  any  age,  Sir  Sidney  Lee  has 
been  able  to  collect  more  full  information  in 
his  interesting  biography  in  the  Dictionary  of 
National  Biography.  The  estimation  in  which 
he  was  held  appears  from  the  many  poems  written 
to  his  memory,  and  from  his  '  occasional  intro- 
duction into  plays  in  his  own  person,  and  in  no 
assumed  character.  ...  In  a  petition  addressed 
by  his  wife  and  son  William  to  the  lord  Cham- 
berlain in  1635,  relative  to  the  shares  in  the 
Blackfriars  and  Globe  playhouses,  they  speak  of 
Richard  Burbage  as  "  one  who  for  thirty  yeares' 
paines,  cost  and  labour  made  meanes  to  leave 
his  wife  and  children  some  estate,"  which  implies 
that  he  died  a  rich  man.'  He  had  some  repu- 
tation as  a  painter,  and  a  tradition  recorded  by 
Oldys  attributes  to  him  the  Chandos  portrait 

65 


SHAKESPEARE  AND  HIS   FELLOWS 

of  Shakespeare,  which  became  the  property  of 
Sir  William  Davenant. 

The  reader  of  the  biographies  of  these  players 
must  be  struck  by  the  respectability  of  their 
lives,  compared  with  the  sad  tale  that  must  be 
told  of  the  University  pens  of  the  day.  Shake- 
speare's most  intimate  friends  appear  to  have  been 
estimable  family  men,  who  took  an  interest  in 
Church  matters,  put  some  money  together,  as 
he  did,  and  provided  well  for  their  families. 

The  most  prosperous  of  the  players  of  the  day 
was  Edward  Alleyn.  He  was  a  famous  actor, 
and  accumulated  great  wealth,  part  of  which 
he  expended  in  the  foundation  and  endowment 
of  the  college  at  Dulwich.  In  1600  he  built,  in 
conjunction  with  Henslowe,  the  Fortune  theatre 
in  Cripplegate.  We  do  not  read  of  him  in  con- 
nection with  any  of  Shakespeare's  plays.  Great 
as  he  undoubtedly  was  as  an  actor,  it  is  not 
uncharitable  to  attribute  his  extraordinary  finan- 
cial success  not  so  much  to  the  legitimate  drama 
as  to  a  speculation  in  which  Shakespeare  would 
have  taken  no  interest,*  for  in  1594  he  acquired 

•  Shakespeare  had  no  respect  for  the  patrons  of  the  bear  garden. 
'  You'll  leave  your  noise  anon,  ye  rascals  :  do  you  take  the  Court 
for  Paris-garden  ?  ye  rude  slaves,  leave  your  gaping'  {Henry  VIII., 
V.  iv.  2).  The  lovers  and  haunters  of  bear-baiting  and  such  like  sports 
are  Autolycus  {Winter's  Tale,  IV.  iii.  108),  Abraham  Slender 
{Merry  Wives,  I.  i.  302),  Sir  Andrew  Aguecheek  {Twelfth  Night, 
I.  iii.   97),  Sir  Toby  Belch  (1*.,  II.   v.  8),  Richard  III.  (2  Henry 

66 


THE   PLAYERS 

an  interest  in  the  baiting-house  at  Paris  Garden, 
and  he  and  Henslowe  obtained  the  office  of 
'  Master  of  the  Royal  Game  of  bears  bulls  and 
Mastiff  dogs.'  'On  special  occasions  he  seems 
to  have  directed  the  sport  in  person,  and  a  graphic 
but  revolting  account  of  his  baiting  a  lion  before 
James  I.  at  the  Tower  is  given  in  Stovfs  Chronicle, 
ed.  1631,  p.  835/* 

It  is  interesting  to  pass  from  the  swollen 
wealth  of  this  ungentle  Master  Baiter,  turned 
philanthropist,  to  the  modest  fortunes  of  one  of 
Shakespeare's  friends,  and  to  his  kindly  thought 
for  his  fellow  players. 

Augustine  Phillips  was,  with  Shakespeare,  an 
original  shareholder  of  the  Globe  theatre.  He 
died  in  1605,  leaving  by  his  will  '"to  my  fellowe 
William  Shakespeare  a  thirty  shilling  peece  in 
gould."  .  .  .  Phillips  died  in  affluent  circum- 
stances, and  remembered  many  of  his  fellow 
actors  in  his  will,  leaving  to  his  "  fellow,"  Henry 
Condell,  and  to  his  theatrical  servant,  Christopher 
Beeston,  like  sums  as  to  Shakespeare.  He  also 
bequeathed  "  twenty  shillings  in  gould  "  to  each 
of  the  actors  Lawrence  Fletcher,  Robert  Armin, 
Richard     Cowley,     Alexander     Cash,     Nicholas 


VI.,  V.   i.    151),  Thersites   (Troilus  and  Cressida,  V.  vii.  12),  and 
Aaron  (Titus  Andronicus,  V.  i.  10 1). 
*  Diet.  Nat.  Biography. 

67 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

Toolcy,  together  with  forty  shillings  and  clothes, 
or  musical  instruments  to  two  theatrical  appren- 
tices Samuel  Gilborne  and  James  Sands.  Five 
pounds  were  further  to  be  equally  distributed 
amongst  "  the  hired  men  of  the  company."  Of 
four  executors,  three  were  the  actors  John 
Heminges,  Richard  Burbage  and  William  Ely, 
who  each  received  a  silver  bowl  of  the  value  of 
five  pounds.'  * 

The  will  of  Augustine  Phillips  is  an  interesting 
document,  for  by  its  aid  we  can  discern  in  the 
profession  of  player,  from  its  very  infancy,  the 
good  fellowship  and  readiness  to  succour  the 
less  successful  members,  by  which  it  has  been 
always  honourably  distinguished. 

The  position  of  the  players,  at  the  time  when 
Shakespeare  was  admitted  to  the  fellowship, 
was  a  strange  one.  At  law,  unless  he  had 
obtained  a  licence  for  the  exercise  of  his  functions 
under  a  statute  passed  in  1572  from  a  peer  of 
the  realm  or  other  honourable  personage  of 
greater  degree,  he  was  liable  to  the  punishment 
inflicted  by  magistrates  on  rogues,  vagabonds, 
or  sturdy  beggars. j*  By  a  fiction  of  law  the 
licensed  players  were  considered  to  be  retained 
as  the  '  household  servants   daylie  waytors,'   of 

•  Life  of  Shakespeare,  p.  453,  note  1. 
f    14  Eliz.  c.  5,  re-enacted  39  Eliz.  c.  4. 

68 


THE   PLAYERS 

the  great  nobleman.  They  craved  no  further 
stipend  or  benefit  at  his  hands  but  their  liveries, 
and  '  also  your  honors  Licence  to  certifye  that 
we  are  your  household  Servaunts  when  we  shall 
have  occasion  to  travayle  amongst  our  frendes.'  * 

The  legal  fiction  by  which  the  player  escaped 
whipping  as  a  vagabond  by  enrolling  himself  as 
a  servant  had,  like  most  others,  its  origin  in 
historical  fact.  The  fellowships  of  players  may 
be  traced  to  the  vast  number  of  servants  and 
retainers  which  was,  up  to  the  early  years  of  the 
sixteenth  century,  attached  to  the  house  of  a 
great  nobleman.  It  was  part  of  their  office  to 
afford  entertainment  on  festive  occasions,  such 
as  a  marriage.  The  servants  were  often  called 
upon  to  entertain  their  masters  and  his  guests 
by  a  dramatic  performance  of  some  kind. 

Play-acting  was  in  the  air  in  the  reign  of 
Elizabeth.  The  miracle  plays  and  moralities  of 
the  Middle  Ages  were  becoming  out  of  date,  and 
the  drama  was  in  course  of  development.  We  find 
it  in  a  rudimentary  form  when  '  three  carters,  three 
shepherds,  three  neat  herds,  three  swine-herds, 
that  have  made  themselves  all  men  of  hair,'  have 
a  dance  '  which  the  wenches  say  is  a  gallimaufry 
of  gambols  because  they  are  not  in  it.'  f     More 

*  Life  of  Shakespeare,  p.  47,  note  1. 
f  Winters  Tale,  IV.  iv.  331. 

69 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

ambitious  was  the  presentation  of  the  Nine 
Worthies^  in  which  the  village  Curate,  Sir 
Nathaniel,  '  a  foolish  mild  man,  an  honest  man 
look  you,  and  soon  dashed,  though  a  marvellous 
good  neighbour  'faith,  and  a  very  good  bowler,' 
was,  when  cast  for  the  part  of  Alexander,  some- 
what o'er-parted.  The  servants  of  Duke  Theseus 
of  Athens  were  ready,  under  the  master  of  the 
revels,  to  provide  a  masque  or  play  to  wear 
away  a  tedious  hour.  The  Duke  inquires  of 
Philostrate 

What  masques,  what  dances  shall  we  have, 
To  wear  away  this  long  age  of  three  hours 
Between  our  after-supper  and  bed-time  ? 
Where  is  our  usual  manager  of  mirth  ? 
What  revels  are  in  hand  ?    Is  there  no  play, 
To  ease  the  anguish  of  a  torturing  hour  ?  * 

It  so  happened  that  Philostrate,  the  master 
of  the  revels,  had  seen  rehearsed  a  play,  as  brief 
as  he  had  known  a  play,  wherewith 

Hard-handed  men  that  work  in  Athens  here, 
Which  never  labour'd  in  their  minds  till  now, 

had  made  ready  against  their  lord's  nuptial, 

Which  when  I  saw  rehearsed,  I  must  confess 
Made  mine  eyes  water  ;   but  more  merry  teares 
The  passion  of  loud  laughter  never  shed. 

*  Midsummer  Night's  Dream,  V.  i.  32. 
70 


THE   PLAYERS 

To  the  master  of  the  revels  this  was  '  nothing, 

nothing  in  the  world.'      But  the  magnanimous 

Theseus  would  see  the  play  : 

For  never  anything  can  be  amiss 
When  simpleness  and  duty  tender  it. 
Go,  bring  them  in. 

The  conversion  of  the  feudal  retinue  of  a  great 
nobleman  into  a  company  of  players  connected 
with  his  name  was  due  to  the  action  of  several 
causes.  The  nobleman  was  no  longer  able  to 
bear  the  expense  of  the  upkeep  of  a  great  feudal 
retinue,  except  by  the  sale  of  a  portion  of  his 
inheritance,  to  which  some  had  recourse,  and  the 
national  passion  for  the  drama  afforded  the  means 
of  maintaining  at  the  expense  of  the  public  a 
company  of  servants  with  which  his  name  was 
honourably  associated. 

The  travelling  companies  in  the  time  of 
Elizabeth  differed  widely  in  importance.  In  the 
old  play  upon  which  The  Taming  of  the  Shrew  is 
founded,  we  find  this  stage  direction  :  '  Enter 
player  with  a  pack.'  The  company  that  visited 
Elsinore  was  of  a  different  class. 

Rosencrantz  tells  Hamlet  that  he  and  his 
companion  had  '  coted  *  them  on  the  way,  and 
hither  are  they  coming  to  offer  you  service.' 

*  In  coursing  language  a  greyhound  outstripping  his  competitor 
is  said  to  have  coted  him.  The  players  were  travelling  slowly  with  the 
wardrobes  and  properties. 

71 


SHAKESPEARE  AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

Ham.  He  that  plays  the  King  shall  be  welcome  : 
his  majesty  shall  have  tribute  of  me  ;  the  adventurous 
knight  shall  use  his  foil  and  target  ;  the  lover  shall  not 
sigh  gratis;  the  humorous  man  shall  end  his  part  in 
peace  ;  the  clown  shall  make  those  laugh  whose  lungs 
are  tickled  o'  the  sere  ;  and  the  lady  shall  say  her  mind 
freely,  or  the  blank  verse  shall  halt  for't.  What  players 
are  they  ? 

Ros.  Even  those  you  were  wont  to  take  delight  in, 
the  tragedians  of  the  city. 

Ham.  How  chances  it  they  travel  ?  Their  residence 
both  in  reputation  and  profit  was  better  both  ways. 

It  is  then  explained  that  since  a  late  innova- 
tion they  do  not  hold  the  same  estimation,  and 
are  not  so  followed  as  when  Hamlet  was  in  the 
city.  It  is  not  their  fault,  for  '  their  endeavour 
keeps  in  the  wonted  pace.'  But  companies  of 
children — '  an  aery  of  children,  little  eyases,  that 
cry  out  on  the  top  of  question,  and  are  most 
tyrannically  clapped  for't — are  now  the  fashion.'  f 
Hamlet  has  some  pertinent  remarks  to  make  on 
this  new  fashion,  which  show  that  he  was  on  the 
side  of  the  tragedians  in  whom  he  was  wont  to 
take  delight.     The  players  arrive  and  are  received 


•  Hamlet,  II.  ii.  330. 

I  The  cyass  was  a  hawk  taken  and  trained  as  a  nestling.  It  was 
not  so  highly  esteemed  by  falconers  as  the  wild  hawk  or  haggard, 
when  reclaimed,  '  Eycasses  are  tedious  and  do  use  to  cry  very  much 
in  their  feedings,  they  are  troublesome  and  paynfull  to  be  entered.' 
Turbervile,  Booke  of  Faulcotine,  1575. 

72 


THE   PLAYERS 

with  a  friendly  courtesy,  removed  alike  from 
offensive  patronage  and  undue  familiarity. 

You  are  welcome,  masters ;  welcome,  all.  I  am  glad 
to  see  thee  well.  Welcome,  good  friends.  0  my  old 
friend!  thy  face  is  valanced  since  I  saw  thee  last; 
comest  thou  to  beard  me  in  Denmark  ?  What  my 
young  lady  and  mistress !  By'r  lady,  your  ladyship 
is  nearer  to  heaven  than  when  I  saw  you  last  by  the 
altitude  of  a  chopine. 

The  coming  of  the  tragedians  of  the  city  to 
Elsinore,  and  their  reception  by  the  Prince  of 
Denmark,  are  reminiscences  of  a  visit  made  by 
the  company  of  which  Shakespeare  was  a 
member  to  a  great  house,  such  as  Wilton,  and 
of  the  favour  with  which,  in  the  language  of  the 
editors  of  the  First  Folio,  he  was  '  prosecuted  ' 
by  its  owner ;  and  it  may  be  that  the  original  of 
Hamlet  was  found  in  some  young  nobleman 
capable  of  great  things,  but  through  lack  of 
decision  throwing  away  his  life  and  oppor- 
tunities ;  distinguished  nevertheless  from  the 
idlers  who  occupied  seats  on  the  stage  of  the 
Globe  and  passed  jests  to  the  actors,  by  genuine 
interest  in  the  drama,  and  by  an  understanding 
of  the  true  principles  of  the  player's  art.  With 
suchlike  visitor  to  the  Globe  theatre  Shakespeare 
would  hold  converse,  such  as  that  of  the  First 
Player  with  the  Prince  of  Denmark. 

73 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

In  the  year  1602  a  curious  satirical  medley- 
was  produced  in  the  University  of  Cambridge. 
Although  it  was  an  academical  production,  and 
full  of  classical  quotations  and  allusions,  it 
excited  sufficient  general  interest  to  lead  to  its 
publication  in  1606,  by  the  title  of  The  Returne 
from  Pernassus,  or  the  Scourge  of  Simony,  as  it 
was  publickly  acted  by  the  Students  in  St.  John's 
College,  Cambridge.  '  It  is  a  very  singular,  a 
very  ingenious,  and,  as  I  think,  a  very  interesting 
performance.  It  contains  criticisms  on  con- 
temporary authors,  strictures  on  living  manners, 
and  the  earliest  denunciation  (I  know  of)  of  the 
miseries  and  unprofitableness  of  a  scholar's  life.'  * 
The  piece  has  no  dramatic  merit.  The  plot  is  a 
slender  thread  on  which  are  strung  a  number 
of  good  things,  in  prose  and  in  verse  ;  satire, 
literary  criticism,  and  reference  to  the  men  and 
topics  of  the  day  ;  a  foretaste  of  the  society 
journalism  of  the  present  day. 

When  we  find  among  the  men,  Shakespeare, 
Ben  Jonson  and  Burbage,  and  among  the  topics, 
the  position  and  reputation  of  thef  play-actor, 
and  of  the  university  playwright,  with  a 
critical  estimate  of  the  poets  and  dramatists  of 
the  day,  the  relevance  of  the  piece  to  the  present 
inquiry  becomes  apparent. 

•  Dramatic  Literature  of  the  Age  of  Elizabeth,  W.  Hazlitt. 

74 


THE   PLAYERS 

The  burden  of  the  play  is  the  little  respect  that 
is  paid  to  learning  and  worth,  and  the  failure  of 
the  highest  academic  merit  to  attain  success  in 
life.  It  tells  of  the  ill-fortune  that  befell  certain 
students  who  left  the  university  to  seek  their 
fortunes  in  the  world,  and  who  were  compelled 
to  return  from  Parnassus  to  humbler  pursuits. 

The  second  title,  the  Scourge  of  Simony, 
indicates  that  the  piece  contains  a  castigation  of 
the  corrupt  practices  by  which  the  deserving 
Academico  was  deprived  of  presentation  to  a 
living  which  was  sold  by  a  patron  from  whom  he 
had  expectations  to  the  father  of  an  unlettered 
boor.  There  is  good  comedy  in  the  description 
of  the  devices  by  which  this  ignoramus  manages 
to  pass  the  necessary  examination.  But  the 
part  of  the  piece  in  which  we  are  interested  is 
that  which  relates  to  the  fortunes  of  playwrights 
and  players. 

The  man  of  genius,  Ingenioso,  writes  plays, 
for  which  he  is,  somehow,  prosecuted.  '  To  be 
brief  Academico,'  he  says,  '  writts  are  out  for 
me  to  apprehend  me  for  my  playes,  and  now 
I  am  bound  for  the  He  of  Doggs.' 

Two    students,     Philomusus    and     Studioso, 
having     tried     medicine     and     acting,     become 
fiddlers.    Finally  leaving  the  '  baser  fidling  trade,' 
they  make  choice  of  '  a  shepheards  poor  secure 

75 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

contented  life  '   and  are    content   to  end    their 
days  on  the  Kentish  downs. 

True  mirth  we  may  enjoy  in  thacked  stall 
Not  hoping  higher  rise,  nor  fearing  lower  fall. 

In  the  fourth  act  we  are  introduced  to  a 
travelling  company  of  players,  who  have  visited 
Cambridge.  They  are  represented  by  Burbage  and 
by  Kempe,  who  filled  the  leading  parts  in  tragedy 
and  in  comedy.  It  is  the  company  of  which 
Shakespeare  was  at  this  time  a  member.  Burbage 
had  often  noticed  among  the  scholars  an  aptitude 
for  the  stage,  and  suggests  that  they  could 
probably  be  engaged  at  a  low  rate.  With  their 
experience  of  their  fellow  Shakespeare  present 
to  his  mind  he  suggests  that  they  might  also  be 
able  to  pen  a  part.  Accordingly,  the  players 
appointed  to  meet  Philomusus  and  Studioso,  in 
order  to  make  test  of  their  quality.  The  students 
keep  the  players  waiting  so  long  that  when  they 
at  length  arrive  the  merry  Kemp  addresses 
Studioso  as  Otioso.  In  the  meantime  the 
players  converse  : 

Bur.  Now,  Will  Kempe,  if  we  can  intertaine  these 
schollers  at  a  low  rate,  it  will  be  well,  they  have  often- 
times a  good  conceite  in  a  part. 

Kempe.  Its  true  indeede,  honest  Dick,  but  the  slaves 
are  somewhat  proud,  and  besides,  it  is  a  good  sport  in  a 
part,  to  see  them  never  speake  in  their  walke,  but  at  the 

76 


THE   PLAYERS 

end  of  the  stage,  iust  as  though  in  walking  with  a  fellow 
we  should  never  speake  but  at  a  stile,  a  gate,  or  a  ditch, 
where  a  man  can  go  no  further.  I  was  once  at  a  Comedie 
in  Cambridge,  and  there  I  saw  a  parasite  make  faces  and 
mouths  of  all  sorts  in  this  fashion. 

Bur.  A  little  teaching  will  mend  these  faults,  and  it 
may  bee  beside  they  will  be  able  to  pen  a  part. 

Kemp.  Few  of  the  vniversity  pen  plaies  will,  they 
smell  too  much  of  that  writer  Ovid,  and  that  writer 
Metamorphosis,  and  talke  too  much  of  Proserpina  and 
luppiter.  Why  heres  our  fellow  Shakespeare  puts  them 
all  downe.  I  and  Ben  Ionson  too.  O  that  Ben  Ionson 
is  a  pestilent  fellow,  he  brought  up  Horace  giuing  the 
poets  a  pill,  but  our  fellow  Shakespeare  hath  giuen  him  a 
purge  that  made  him  beray  his  credit. 

Bur.  Its  a  shrewd  fellow  indeed  :  I  wonder  these 
schollers  stay  so  long,  they  appointed  to  be  here  presently 
that  we  might  try  them  ;   Oh  here  they  come. 

Studioso  and  Philomusus  enter,  and  after 
some  pleasantry,  they  are  tried.  Kempe  thinks 
that  Studioso  should  belong  to  his  tuition. 
'  Your  face  me  thinkes  would  be  good  for  a 
foolish  Mayre  or  a  foolish  justice  of  peace.' 

Bur.  {to  Philomusus).  I  like  your  face,  and  the  propor- 
tion of  your  body  for  Richard  the  3.  I  pray  M.  Phil,  let 
me  see  you  act  a  little  of  it. 

Phil.     Now  is  the  winter  of  our  discontent 

Made  glorious  summer  by  the  sonne  of  York. 

Bur.  Very  well  I  assure  you,  well  M.  Phil,  and 
M.  Stud,  wee  see  what  ability  you  are  of ;  I  pray  walke 
with  us  to  our  fellows,  and  weele  agree  presently. 

77 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

Notwithstanding  this  promising  beginning, 
nothing  came  of  the  project.  The  terms  offered 
by  the  thrifty  players  were  too  low,  for  in  the 
next  scene  Phil,  and  Stud,  appear  as  fiddlers, 
with  their  consort. 

Stud.     Better  it  is  mongst  fidlers  to  be  chiefe 
Then  at  plaiers  trencher  beg  reliefe, 
But  ist  not  strange  this  mimick  apes  should  prize 
Unhappy  schollers  at  a  hireling  rate. 
Vile  word,  that  lifts  them  vp  to  hye  degree, 
And  treades  vs  dovvne  in  groueling  misery. 
England  affordes  these  glorious  vagabonds, 
That  carried  earst  their  fardels  on  their  backes 
Coursers  to  rid  on  through  the  gazing  streetes, 
Sooping  it  in  their  glaring  Satten  sutes, 
And  Pages  to  attend  their  maisterships  ; 
With  mouthing  words  that  better  wits  have  made 
They  purchase  lands,  and  now  Esquieres  are  made. 

About  three  years  before  the  representation  of 
The  Returne  from  Pernassus  Shakespeare  had  by 
the  purchase  of  New  Place,  in  the  words  of  Sir 
Sidney  Lee,  inaugurated  the  building  up  at 
Stratford  of  a  large  landed  estate.  The  owner 
of  the  largest  house  in  Stratford,  who  had 
applied  for  a  grant  of  arms  to  his  father,  may 
well  have  appeared  to  the  envious  student  as 
having  attained  to  the  estate  of  esquire,  and  that 
Shakespeare  (when  his  means  allowed  of  it,  but 
no  sooner)  was  seen  riding  through  the  streets 

78 


THE   PLAYERS 

on  a  courser,  on  which  passers  by  stopped  to 
gaze,  cannot  be  doubted.  It  is  the  '  roan 
Barbary '  which  carried  Henry  Bolingbroke, 
when  he  road  into  London 

Mounted  upon  a  hot  and  fiery  steed 
Which  his  aspiring  rider  seem'd  to  know.* 

It  is  the  red  roan  courser  '  of  the  colour  of  the 
nutmeg  and  of  the  heat  of  ginger,'  in  whose 
praise  the  Dauphin  wrote  a  sonnet  which  began 
thus  :   { Wonder  of  Nature.'  f 

At  some  time  of  his  life  the  fiery  courage  and 
elastic  tread  of  the  Eastern  horse  came  as  a 
revelation  to  one  accustomed  to  the  somewhat 
wooden  paces  of  the  thickset,  straight-pasterned 
home-bred  English  horse  of  the  early  days  when 
Venus  and  Adonis  was  written.  And  thence- 
forth Shakespeare  would  say  in  the  words  of 
Hotspur,  this  '  roan  shall  be  my  throne.' 

Can  we  wonder  that  a  prosperous  player — 
a  glorious  vagabond — seated  on  this  throne, 
honoured  and  wealthy,  should  have  excited  the 
envy  of  Studioso,  at  his  wits'  end  to  turn  to 
profitable  use  the  learning  of  St.  John's  College  ? 
Or  that  he  should  have  consoled  himself  with 
the  reflection  that  after  all  the  players  did  no 

*  Richard  77.,  V.  ii.  8. 
f  Henry  V.,  III.  vii.  20. 

79 


SHAKESPEARE  AND  HIS   FELLOWS 

more  than  speak  '  words  that  better  wits  had 
made  '  ? 

A  curious  tractate  of  about  the  year  1605,  of 
which  there  was  an  unique  copy  in  the  Althorpe 
library,  was  reprinted  by  the  New  Shakespere 
Society.*  A  player  is  advised  to  betake  himself 
to  London.  '  There  thou  shalt  learne  to  be 
frugall  (for  players  were  never  so  thriftie  as  they 
are  now  about  London)  &  to  feed  upon  all  men, 
to  let  none  feede  upon  thee  ;  to  make  thy  hand 
a  stranger  to  thy  pocket,  thy  hart  slow  to  per- 
forme  thy  tongues  promise  :  and  when  thou 
feelest  thy  purse  well  lined,  buy  thee  some  place 
of  Lordship  in  the  Country,  that  growing  weary 
of  playing,  thy  mony  may  there  bring  thee  to 
dignitie  and  reputation.  .  .  .  Sir,  I  thanke  thee 
(quoth  the  player)  for  this  good  counsell,  I 
promise  you  I  will  make  use  of  it,  for,  I  have 
heard  indeede  of  some  that  have  gone  to  London 
very  meanly,  and  have  come  in  time  to  be 
exceeding  wealthy.' 

From  The  Returne  from  Pernassus  we  can 
understand  the  envy  that  was  excited  in  the 
university  wits  by  the  wealth  and  prosperity  of 
the  successful  players,  but  fully  to  realise  the 
feelings  of  the  university  pen,  put  down,  in  the 
words    of    Kempc,    by    one    of    these    players, 

•  Rat  sets  Ghost. 
80 


THE   PLAYERS 

commencing  dramatist,  we  must  look  else- 
where. 

It  may  be  that  Shakespeare  at  the  height  of 
his  prosperity  was  regarded  as  the  type  of  the 
thrifty  and  successful  player,  and  there  are 
allusions  in  the  speech  of  Studioso  and  in 
Ratseis  Ghost  which  may  well  be  applied  to  him. 
But  the  players  about  London  were  noted  as 
generally  thrifty,  and  some  of  Shakespeare's 
fellows,  as  we  have  seen,  acquired  substantial 
property. 

The  precise  date  at  which  Shakespeare  was 
admitted  to  the  fellowship  of  players  is  unknown. 
It  is  generally  believed  that  he  left  Stratford  for 
London  in  the  year  1586,  and,  according  to 
Rowe,  '  he  was  received  into  the  company 
then  in  being,  at  first  in  a  very  mean  rank.' 
According  to  Davenant,  his  earliest  connection 
with  the  theatre  was  of  a  still  humbler  kind. 
It  was  that  of  holding  the  horses  of  visitors  to 
the  theatres.  The  story  is  thus  told  by  Dr. 
Johnson.  When  Shakespeare  fled  to  London 
'  his  first  expedient  was  to  wait  at  the  door  of 
the  playhouse,  and  hold  the  horses  of  those  that 
had  no  servants,  that  they  might  be  ready  again 
after  the  performance.  In  this  office  he  became 
so  conspicuous  for  his  care  and  readiness,  that 
in  a  short  time  every  man  as  he  alighted  called 

81 


SHAKESPEARE     AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

for  Will.  Shakespeare,  and  scarcely  any  other 
waiter  was  trusted  with  a  horse  while  Will. 
Shakespeare  could  be  had.  This  was  the  first 
dawn  of  better  fortune.  Shakespeare  finding 
more  horses  put  into  his  hand  than  he  could 
hold,  hired  boys  to  wait  under  his  inspection, 
who,  when  Will.  Shakespeare  was  summoned, 
were  immediately  to  present  themselves,  "  I  am 
Shakespeare's  boy,  Sir."  In  time  Shakespeare 
found  higher  employment,  but  as  long  as  the 
practice  of  riding  to  the  playhouse  continued, 
the  waiters  that  held  the  horses  retained  the 
appellation  of  Shakespeare's  boys.'  Malone, 
though  he  discredits  the  story,  writes  :  '  The 
genealogy  of  this  story  it  must  be  acknowledged 
is  very  correctly  deduced.'  It  first  appeared  in 
print  in  The  Lives  of  the  English  Poets,  published 
in  1753  by  Cibber,  according  to  whom  Sir 
William  Davenant  told  it  to  Betterton,  who  told 
it  to  Rowe.  Although  Rowe  told  the  story  to 
Pope,  he  did  not  include  it  in  his  Life.  The 
reason  why  it  was  discredited  by  Rowe  was 
probably  that  which  was  thus  stated,  a  few 
years  later,  by  Steevens  :  '  the  most  popular 
of  the  Theatres  were  on  the  Bankside  ;  and  we 
are  told  by  the  satirical  writers  of  the  time  that 
the  usual  mode  of  conveyance  to  these  places 
was  by  water  ;    but  not  a  single  writer  so  much 

82 


THE   PLAYERS 

hints  at  the  custom  of  riding  to  them,  or  at  the 
practice  of  having  horses  held  during  the  time  of 
the  exhibition.'  To  Rowe,  as  to  Steevens,  the 
idea  of  riding  to  theatres  on  the  Bankside 
naturally  seemed  absurd.  That  Rowe  discarded 
a  story  which  seemed  to  him  to  be  so  improbable 
shows  the  carefulness  with  which  he  sifted  the 
information  which  was  supplied  to  him.  But  by 
a  plain  tale  the  criticism  of  Steevens  and  the 
scepticism  of  Rowe  and  Malone  are  put  down. 

When  Shakespeare  came  to  London  there 
were  only  two  theatres,  the  '  Theatre  '  and  the 
1  Curtain,'  to  one  of  which  he  must  have  been 
attached.  These  theatres  were  in  the  fields 
within  half  a  mile  of  the  city  wall,  and  we  now 
know  that  it  was  the  custom  to  approach  them 
on  horseback.  Sir  John  Davies,  in  an  epigram 
written  before  1599,  wrote 

Faustus,  nor  lord,  nor  knight,  nor  wise,  nor  old 
To  every  place  about  the  town  doth  ride  ; 
He  rides  into  the  fields,  plays  to  behold  ; 
He  rides  to  take  boat  at  the  waterside. 

Later  on,  the  Globe,  and  the  Rose,  the 
popular  theatres,  were  on  Bankside,  and 
approached  by  water,  and  for  more  than  one 
hundred  years  before  Rowe  wrote  no  one  had 
spoken  of  riding  to  the  play.  Recent  research 
shows  that  there  is  no  reason  why  Davenant's 

83 


a  2 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

story  should  be  discredited.  It  must  have  had 
its  origin  in  the  days  of  riding  to  the  theatre. 
It  is  accepted  by  Mr.  Elton,  and  Sir  Sidney  Lee 
sees  no  improbability  of  the  main  drift  of  the 
strange  tale. 

The  tradition  that  Shakespeare  in  extremity 
of  need  turned  to  horses  as  a  means  of  earning 
his  bread,  and  in  some  employment  connected 
with  their  care  made  a  name  which  others 
thought  worth  pirating,  gains  some  confirmation 
from  the  constant  and  needless  occurrence  in  his 
plays  of  the  language  of  the  groom,  the  farrier 
and  the  horse  master  ;  and  still  more  from  his 
use  of  familiar  corruptions  and  cant  phrases 
current  in  the  stable  and  in  the  blacksmith's 
shop.* 

The  story  is  interesting,  not  only  as  an  incident 
in  the  life  of  Shakespeare,  but  because  it  brings 
into  strong  relief  one  side  of  his  character.  In 
it  we  find  the  beginning  of  the  qualities  by  the 
use  of  which,  in  the  words  of  Professor  Dowden, 
he    came    at    the  age  of    thirty-three    '  posessor 

•  Over  one  hundred  and  fifty  phrases  and  terms  of  art  connected 
with  horses  and  horsemanship  have  been  collected  from  the  works 
of  Shakespeare.  Among  them  arc  the  following  corruptions  current 
in  the  stable  :  "  The  fives  "  for  "  vives  "  ;  "  springhalt  "  for 
"  stringhalt  "  ;  "  mosing  "  for  "  mourning  "  of  the  chine.  "  Farcy  " 
is,  according  to  Gervase  Markham  (Maister-peece)  "  of  our  ignorant 
smiths  called  the  fashions."  The  word  "  fashions  "  used  by  Shake- 
speare must  have  been  picked  up  by  him  in  some  ignorant  black- 
smith's forge  in  Stratford. 

84 


THE   PLAYERS 

of  New  Place  at  Stratford,  and  from  year  to 
year  added  to  his  worldly  dignity  and  wealth. 
Such  material  advancement,  argues  a  power  of 
understanding,  and  adapting  oneself  to  the  facts 
of  the  material  world.' 

All  places  that  the  eye  of  heaven  visits 

Are  to  the  wise  man  ports  and  happy  havens. 

In  this  spirit  Shakespeare,  fallen  on  evil  days, 
turned  to  practical  use  his  love  of  horses,  and  the 
practical  knowledge  of  their  care  which  he  had 
somehow  acquired.  Realising  with  Cassius  that 
'  men  at  some  time  are  masters  of  their  fate,' 
and  that  the  fault  is  not '  in  our  stars  but  in  our- 
selves that  we  are  underlings,'  he  applied  him- 
self to  the  work  that  came  to  hand  with  an 
understanding  of  the  facts  of  the  material  world, 
and  a  determination  to  be  master  of  his  fate, 
which  ensured  success. 

Some  of  the  most  interesting  accounts  of  the 
early  years  of  Shakespeare's  life  have  been 
traced,  through  a  respectable  pedigree,  to  Sir 
William  Davenant.  It  is  therefore  important 
to  consider  how  far  he  ought  to  be  regarded  as  a 
trustworthy  authority.  Davenant  was  the  son 
of  a  well-known  citizen  of  Oxford,  Mr.  John 
D'Avenant  (so  the  name  was  written),  the 
owner   of   a    tavern   afterwards    known   as   the 

85 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

1  Crown.'  He  was,  according  to  Anthony  a 
Wood,  a  grave  and  discreet  man,  '  yet  an 
admirer  and  lover  of  plays  and  play  writers, 
especially  Shakespeare,  who  frequented  his  house 
in  his  journeys  between  Warwickshire  and 
London.'  *  Mrs.  D'Avenant  was  '  a  very 
beautiful  woman  of  good  wit  and  understanding.' 
Shakespeare  was  on  terms  of  intimacy  with  the 
family.  William,  the  second  son,  was  his  god- 
child. Another  son,  Robert,  became  a  Fellow 
of  St.  John's  College,  and  a  Doctor  of  Divinity. 
Aubrey  may  be  believed,  when  in  his  account  of 
Shakespeare  he  writes :  '  I  have  heard  parson 
Robert  say  that  Mr.  Wm.  Shakespeare  having 
given  him  a  hundred  kisses.'  An  ancient  scandal 
retailed  by  Aubrey  is  only  to  our  present  pur- 
pose inasmuch  as  it  is  founded  on  the  well- 
known  intimacy  of  Shakespeare  with  the 
D'Avenant  family.  Shakespeare  manifested  a 
special  affection  for  his  godchild  which  was 
certainly  returned.  William  was  only  ten  years 
of  age  when  his  godfather  died,  but  from  an 
early  age  he  was  devoted  to  his  memory,  for  at 
the  age  of  twelve  he  composed  an  '  Ode  in 
remembrance  of  Master  Shakespeare,'  which 
was  published  in  the  year  1638. 

Davenant's  devotion  to  the  memory  of  Shake- 

•  A  then.  Oxon. 

86 


THE   PLAYERS 

speare  continued  throughout  his  life.  At  his 
death  he  was  the  owner  of  a  portrait  which,  from 
its  subsequent  history,  became  known  as  the 
Chandos  portrait,  and  which  became  the 
property  of  the  actor  Betterton. 
.^■-Dryden,  in  his  preface  to  The  Tempest,  altered 
by  him  in  collaboration  with  Davenant,  writes  : 
'  I  do  not  set  any  value  on  anything  in  this 
play,  but  out  of  gratitude  to  the  memory  of 
Sir  William  Davenant,  who  did  me  the  honour 
to  join  me  with  him  in  the  alteration  of  it.  It 
was  originally  Shakespeare's,  a  poet  for  whom  he 
had  particularly  a  high  veneration,  and  whom  he 
first  taught  me  to  admire.' 

Mr.  Elton  writes  :  '  If  we  could  evoke  some 
shadow  of  the  living  Shakespeare,  it  could  only 
be  with  the  help  of  Davenant's  recollections. 
We  shall  find  little  help  from  painting  or  sculp- 
ture ;  but  we  can  compare  what  was  said  by 
those  who  knew  the  poet,  or  had  talked  with  his 
friends.'  Aubrey  and  Betterton  had  talked 
with  Davenant.  Rowe  received  the  story  of  the 
organising  of  the  brigade  of  '  Shakespeare's 
Boys  '  from  Betterton,  who  had  it  directly  from 
Sir  William  Davenant.  The  leading  facts  of  the 
early  life  of  an  intimate  friend  who  had  become 
so  famous  must  have  been  treasured  in  the 
memories  of  the  D'Avenant  family  ;    and   the 

87 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

struggles  of  his  younger  days  were  recalled  with 
pride,  in  the  light  of  the  success  that  he  had 
attained.  Sir  William's  devotion  to  the  memory 
of  his  godfather  would  have  led  him  to  collect 
the  facts  with  pious  care.  A  story  that  descends 
from  Davenant  through  a  respectable  pedigree 
ought  to  be  received  with  respect,  and  we  now 
know  that  men  did  in  fact  ride  from  town  to  the 
theatre  at  the  time  when  Shakespeare  took 
refuge  in  London. 

We  do  not  know  how  it  came  to  be  found  out 
by  the  players  that  Shakespeare's  wits  could  be 
turned  to  better  account  than  in  holding  the 
horses  of  the  playgoers,  and  speculation  on  this 
subject  is  idle.  His  admission  to  a  company  of 
players  was  the  first  step  of  the  ladder  which 
led  him  to  the  summit  of  his  fame  as  a  dramatist, 
and  the  success  of  his  plays,  when  presented  on 
the  stage,  is  in  great  measure  due  to  the  prac- 
tical acquaintance  with  stagecraft  which  he  had 
acquired  when  working  in  the  theatre.  '  Poet 
as  he  was  and  philosopher  and  psychologist, 
Shakespeare  was  first  of  all  a  playwright,  com- 
posing plays  to  be  performed  by  actors  in  a 
theatre,  before  his  audience.'  *   "~m*' 

Shakespeare  was  successful  as  an  actor, 
although  he  did  not  attain  to  the  highest  emi- 

•  Shakespeare  as  a  Playwright,  by  Brander  Matthew  (Preface). 

88 


THE   PLAYERS 

nence.  Five  or  six  years  after  his  advent  to 
London  Chettle  writes  of  him  as  '  exelent  in  the 
qualitie  he  professes.'*  And  the  prominent  place 
occupied  by  his  name  in  the  licences  granted  to 
the  companies  with  which  he  was  connected  is 
evidence  of  the  position  which  he  held  in  the 
theatre.  Tradition  assigns  to  him  the  parts  of 
the  Ghost  in  his  Hamlet,  the  top  of  his  perform- 
ance according  to  Rowe,  and  of  Adam  in  As  Tou 
Like  It.  His  name  is  not  associated  with  any 
great  part.  His  heart  was  not  in  his  profession.^ 
'  His  highest  ambitions  lay,  it  is  true,  elsewhere 
than  in  acting  or  theatrical  management,  and 
at  an  early  period  of  his  histrionic  career  he 
undertook,  with  triumphant  success,  the  labours 
of  a  playwright.  It  was  in  dramatic  poetry  that 
his  genius  found  its  goal.  But  he  pursued  the 
profession  of  an  actor,  and  fulfilled  all  the 
obligations  of  a  theatrical  shareholder  loyally 
and  uninterruptedly  until  very  near  the  date  of 
his  death. 'J 

From  Shakespeare's  relations  with  the  players 
we  learn  that  he  was  a  man  who  inspired  his 

*  Kind  Harts  Dream  (Preface).  "  Quality,  in  Elizabethan  English, 
was  the  technical  term  for  the  actor's  profession  "  {Life  of  Shake- 
speare, p.  86,  note  3).  Hamlet  used  the  word  in  this  technical 
meaning  when  he  said  to  the  players,  "  Come,  give  us  a  taste  of 
your  quality." 

f  See  Sonnets,  ex.  and  cxi. 

%  Life  of  Shakespeare,  p.  89. 

89 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

fellows  with  feelings  of  affection  as  well  as  respect. 
His  was  a  sympathetic  nature.  The  players 
were  proud  of  his  success,  and  indignant  when 
they  thought  that  his  reputation  was  malevo- 
lently attacked.  They  collected  and  published 
his  plays  to  keep  alive  the  memory  of  '  so  worthy 
a  friend.'  Shakespeare  was  a  worthy  friend. 
In  his  prosperity  he  was  loyal  to  players  by 
whom  he  had  been  raised  from  the  mean  rank 
to  which  he  had  fallen,  and  in  his  last  hours, 
when  making  his  will,  his  thoughts  turned,  not 
to  powerful  patrons  or  literary  magnates,  but 
to  his  fellows,  Heming  and  Condell.  It  is  to 
his  rare  i  gentleness  '  towards  his  fellows,  and 
to  their  appreciation  of  it,  that  we  owe  the  gift 
that  they  bestowed  upon  humanity. 


90 


THE    UNIVERSITY    PENS 

Among  the  tens  of  thousands  who  daily  heard 
brave  Talbot  '  triumph  again  on  the  stage,' 
there  was  one  in  whose  ears  the  heroic  strain 
sounded  as  a  death  knell.  He  was  the  author 
of  the  dull  and  lifeless  historical  drama  which 
had  been  redeemed  from  failure  by  an  upstart 
player,  who  dared  to  suppose  that  he  could 
'  bombast  out '  a  blank  verse  with  the  best  of 
the  university  pens. 

The  first  part  of  Henry  VI.  in  its  original 
form  has  not  survived,  and  no  record  of  its 
production  has  been  found.  Whether  it  was  in 
fact  presented  to  the  public  before  the  revision 
of  the  piece  by  Shakespeare,  and  the  introduction 
of  the  Talbot  scenes  had  ensured  its  enthusiastical 
reception  by  a  patriotic  audience,  is  a  matter  of 
uncertainty.  The  second  and  third  parts  of 
Henry  VI.,  as  they  stood  before  the  final  revision 
by  Shakespeare,  are  extant.*     The  theory  that 

*  In  The  first  part  of  the  contention  betwixt  the  two  famous  bouses 
of  Tork  and  Lancaster,  published  in  1594,  and  The  True  Tragedy  of 
Richard,  Duke  of  Torke,  and  the  death  of  good  King  Henry  the  Sixt, 
as  it  was  sundrie  times  acted  by  the  Earl  of  Pembroke,  his  servants, 
published  in  the  following  year. 

91 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

Greene  and  Peele,  possibly  with  the  assistance 
of  Marlowe,  produced  the  original  draft  of  the 
three  parts  of  Henry  VI.  may  be  accepted.  That 
they  were  finally  revised  by  Shakespeare,  that 
they  assumed  the  form  in  which  they  were  printed 
in  the  First  Folio,  is  certain.  The  authorship,  in 
whole  or  in  part,  of  Greene  is  supported  by 
stronger  evidence  than  similarity  of  workmanship. 

Robert  Greene  may  be  taken  as  representative 
of  a  class  with  whom  Shakespeare  was  brought 
into  literary  fellowship  when  he  commenced 
dramatist.  They  were  known  as  the  uni- 
versity pens. 

In  the  early  part  of  the  reign  of  Elizabeth  the 
spread  of  the  New  Learning,  and  a  wider  outlook 
on  life,  inspired  the  youth  of  the  nation  with 
a  desire  to  seek  out  new  fields  for  the  exercise 
of  the  powers  of  which  they  were  conscious. 
'  Home-keeping  youth  have  ever  homely  wits,' 
was  a  modern  instance  from  the  lips  of  one  of 
the  '  two  gentlemen  of  Verona.' 

It  was  a  time  in  which 

Men  of  slender  reputation 
Put  forth  their  sons  to  seek  preferment  out ; 
Some  to  the  wars,  to  try  their  fortune  there  ; 
Some  to  discover  islands  far  away  ; 
Some  to  the  studious  Universities.* 

*  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona,  I.  iii.  6. 
92 


THE  UNIVERSITY   PENS 

But  the  university  is  not  the  end  of  life,  and 
the  studious  youth  who  had  been  sent  thither 
by  his  father  to  seek  out  preferment  had  no 
sooner  attained  his  degree  than  he  found  him 
confronted  with  the  problem  of  how  he  was  to 
earn  his  bread.  The  study  of  university  life 
from  which  we  have  quoted  enables  us  to  realise 
the  struggle  for  existence  which  awaited  those 
students  who  had  made  the  best  use  of  their  time 
at  the  university ;  for  the  names  under  which 
we  know  Studioso,  Philomusus,  and  Ingenioso 
indicate  that  they  are  intended  to  represent 
this  class.* 

The  Civil  Service,  the  various  branches  of 
which  at  home  and  abroad  offer  such  a  wide 
field  of  useful  and  profitable  employment,  had 
not  come  into  existence. 

According  to  the  author  of  The  Returne  from 
Pernassus,  the  Church  was  suffering  under  the 
scourge  of  simony,  and  it  is  apparent  that  he 
regarded  the  law  as  suitable  only  to  a  student 
of  ample  means,  for  the  student  who  is  intended 
for  the  law  is  the  son  of  a  man  of  property,  the 
owner  of  the  advowson  of  the  living  that  was  the 
victim  of  the  scourge  of  simony. 

Ingenioso,  if  he  had  lived  at  the  present  day, 
would  have  found  an  exercise  for  his  powers,  and 

*  The  Returne  from  Pernassus,  ante,  p.  74. 

93 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

an  immediate  source  of  income,  in  writing  for 
the  press.  Failing  any  other  resource,  he  joins 
the  fellowship  of  the  university  pens. 

Robert  Greene,  born  about  1560,  matriculated 
at  St.  John's  College,  Cambridge,  and  obtained 
the  degree  of  M.A.  in  1588.  If,  as  is  stated,  he 
was  incorporated  at  Oxford  in  1588,  he  was 
closely  connected  with  university  life.  In  the 
course  of  a  short  and  miserable  life,  as  dramatist, 
poet  and  pamphleteer,  he  produced  works  suf- 
ficiently voluminous  to  be  published  in  fifteen 
volumes  in  the  Huth  Library  (188 1-6).  He  was 
a  protagonist  in  the  war  of  pamphleteers,  in 
which  Gabriel  Harvey  and  Nash  took  part,  a 
curious  feature  of  the  Elizabethan  age,  which 
has  been  already  noticed.  It  is,  however,  as  a 
dramatist  that  he  is  brought  into  relationship 
with  Shakespeare.  His  position  among  the 
university  playwrights  is  thus  estimated  by  Sir 
A.  W.  Ward  :  '  Greene's  dramatic  genius  has 
nothing  in  it  of  the  intensity  of  Marlowe's  tragic 
muse  ;  nor  perhaps  does  he  ever  equal  Peele  at 
his  best.  On  the  other  hand,  his  dramatic 
poetry  is  occasionally  animated  with  the  breezy 
freshness  which  no  artifice  can  simulate.  He 
had  considerable  constructive  skill,  but  he  has 
created  no  character  of  commanding  power — 
unless  Ateukin  be  excepted  ;    but  his  personages 

94 


THE   UNIVERSITY   PENS 

are  living  men  and  women,  and  marked  out  from 
one  another  with  a  vigorous,  but  far  from  rude, 
hand.  His  comic  humour  is  undeniable,  and 
he  had  the  gift  of  light  and  graceful  dialogue. 
His  diction  is  overloaded  with  classical  orna- 
ment, but  his  versification  is  easy  and  fluent,  and 
its  cadence  is  at  times  singularly  sweet.  He 
creates  his  best  effects  by  the  simplest  means, 
and  he  is  indisputably  one  of  the  most  attractive 
of  early  English  dramatic  authors.'* 

His  dramas  have  now  no  interest  for  any  but 
professed  students  of  English  literature.  But 
the  story  of  his  life  may  be  profitably  studied, 
for  it  throws  some  light  upon  his  relations  with 
Shakespeare,  and  in  it  we  find,  in  an  exaggerated 
form,  the  character  and  experiences  of  many 
members  of  the  fellowship  of  dramatists  at  the 
time  when  they  were  joined  by  Shakespeare. 

Greene  died  in  the  year  1582,  and  on  his 
deathbed  wrote  the  one  of  the  thirty-five 
prose  tracts  ascribed  to  his  pen  which  has 
secured  for  him  an  unenviable  immortality.  It 
is  one  of  three  pamphlets  which  were  published 
after  the  author's  death.  They  are  all  more  or 
less  autobiographical  in  their  character,  but 
that  which  is  of  special  interest  was  edited  by 
Henry  Chettle,  and  published  in  1582  under  the 

*  Encyclopedia  Britannica,  nth  ed. 

95 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

title  of  '  Greens  Groats-worth  of  Wit,  bought 
with  a  Million  of  Repentance,  describing  the 
follic  of  youth,  the  falshoode  of  makeshift 
flatterers,  the  miserie  of  the  negligent,  and  mis- 
chiefes  of  deceiuing  courtizans,  written  before 
his  death,  and  published  at  his  dying  request.' 

Greene  having  come  to  a  pass  at  which 
'  sicknesse,  riot,  incontinence,  have  at  once 
shown  their  extremitie,'  sends  a  message  to  his 
readers  ;  '  the  last  I  have  writ  ;  and  I  fear  me 
the  last  I  shall  write.'  Greene  was,  indeed,  in 
sore  distress.  He  was  dependent  for  his  support 
on  a  poor  shoemaker  and  his  wife.  He  gave  a 
bond  for  ten  pounds  to  his  host,  and  wrote  on 
the  day  before  his  death  these  pitiful  lines  to  his 
deserted  wife  :  '  Doll,  I  charge  thee  by  the  love 
of  our  youth  and  by  my  soules  rest  that  thou 
wilt  see  this  man  paide  for  if  hce  and  his  wife 
had  not  succoured  me  I  had  died  in  the  streetes.'* 

In  this  tractate  the  story  is  told  of  a  young 
man  named  Roberto.  The  part  which  deals  with 
the  parentage  and  early  history  of  Roberto  and 
his  wealthy  brother  is  a  moral  tale  which  has  no 
relation  to  the  life  history  of  Greene.  The 
autobiographical  part  of  the  tract  is  easily 
separable  from  the  moral  talc.  Roberto,  as  he 
lay  on  the  ground  in  distress,  is  accosted  by  a 

•  "  Life,"  by  A.  H.  Bullen,  in  Diet.  Nat.  Biography. 

96 


THE  UNIVERSITY  PENS 

stranger  who  has  overheard  his  lamentation. 
He  offers  to  '  endeauour  to  doe  the  best,  that 
either  may  procure  your  profit  or  bring  you 
pleasure  ;  the  rather  for  that  I  suppose  you  are 
a  scholar,  and  pittie  it  is  men  of  learning  should 
Hue  in  lacke.'  Employment  may  easily  be 
obtained,  '  for  men  of  my  profession  get  by 
scholars  their  whole  living.  What  is  your  pro- 
fession sayd  Roberto  ?  Truely  sir,  said  he, 
"  I  am  a  player."  "  A  player,"  quoth  Roberto, 
"  I  took  you  rather  for  a  gentleman  of  great 
liuing ;  for  if  by  outward  habit  men  should 
be  censured,  I  tell  you,  you  would  be  taken  for 
a  substantiall  man.  So  am  I  where  I  dwell 
(quoth  the  player)  reputed  able  at  my  proper 
cost  to  build  a  Windmill,  what  though  the 
worlde  once  went  hard  with  mee,  when  I  was 
faine  to  carrie  my  playing  Fardle  a  footebacke  ; 
Tempora  mutantur  ;  I  know  you  know  the  mean- 
ing of  it  better  than  I,  but  I  thus  conster  it,  it 
is  otherwise  now ;  for  my  very  share  in  playing 
apparrell  will  not  be  solde  for  two  hundred 
pounds."  Roberto  asks  :  '  How  meane  you  to 
use  mee  ?  Why,  sir,  in  making  playes,  said  the 
other,  for  which  you  shall  be  well  paied  if  you 
will  take  the  paines.'  Roberto  went  with  the 
player,  and  became  '  famozed  for  an  Arch- 
plaimaking  poet,  his  prose  like  the  sea  somtime 

97 


SHAKESPEARE  AND  HIS   FELLOWS 

sweled,  anon  like  the  same  sea  fell  to  a  low  ebbe, 
yet  seldom  he  wanted,  his  labors  were  so  well 
esteemed.'  The  story  of  the  bad  company  into 
which  Roberto  fell,  and  the  ill  treatment  of  his 
wife,  is  unhappily  true  of  Greene,  for  a  pathetic 
letter  was  found  among  his  papers  after  his  death 
addressed  to  his  wife  from  '  thy  repentent 
husband  for  his  disloyaltie  Robert  Greene.' 

It  is  at  this  point  in  the  narrative  that  Greene 
intervenes  in  his  proper  person.  '  Heere 
(Gentlemen)  breake  I  off  Roberto's  speech  ; 
whose  life  in  most  part  agreeing  with  mine, 
found  one  selfe  punished  as  I  haue  doone.  Here- 
after suppose  me  the  said  Roberto,  and  I  will 
goe  on  with  that  hee  promised  :  Greene  will 
send  you  new  his  groatsworth  of  wit,  that  never 
showed  a  mites-worth  in  his  life  ;  and  though 
no  man  now  be  by,  to  doe  me  good,  yet  ere  I 
die,  I  will  by  my  repentance  indeuour  to  doe  all 
men  good.' 

Greene  in  some  fine  verses  bids  farewell 
to  the 

Deceiuing  world,  that  with  alluring  toyes, 
Hast  made  my  life  the  subject  of  thy  scorne. 

Having  delivered  himself  of  some  moral  maxims, 
he  directs  a  few  lines  to  his  '  fellowe  schollers 
about   this   cittie '  addressed  '  to  those   gentle- 

98 


THE  UNIVERSITY   PENS 

men,  his  Quondam  acquaintance,  that  spend 
their  wits  in  making  Plaies,  R.  G.  wisheth  a 
better  exercise,  and  wisdome  to  preuent  his 
extremities.' 

To  the  playwrights  generally,  Greene  offers 
the  advice  that  they  should  be  employed  in 
more  profitable  courses  than  in  writing  plays  for 
the  benefit  of  the  actors,  of  whom  he  writes  with 
contempt  as  '  those  Puppits  that  speake  from 
our  mouths,  those  Anticks  garnisht  in  our 
colours,  .  .  .  for  it  is  pitie  men  of  such  rare  wits, 
should  be  subject  to  the  pleasures  of  such  rude 
groomes.'  This  is  the  point  of  view  of  the 
students  of  Greene's  old  college,  St.  John's. 
According  to  Studioso,  the  wealth  by  which  the 
players  are  enabled  to  purchase  lands  and 
attain  to  dignity  are  '  mouthing  words  that 
better  wits  have  framed.'  Trust  not  these  men, 
is  his  advice,  for  the  playwright  to  whom  they 
are  beholden  for  the  words  by  the  speaking  of 
which  they  attain  to  wealth  and  fame  will  be 
allowed  by  them  to  perish  for  want  of  comfort. 
'  Is  it  not  strange  that  I  to  whom  they  al  haue 
been  beholding  ;  is  it  not  like  that  you  to  whom 
they  all  haue  been  beholding,  shall  (were  ye  in 
that  case  that  I  am  now)  be  both  at  once  of  them 
forsaken  ?  ' 

To    each    of    three    players,    his     quondam 

99 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

acquaintance,  Greene  addresses  a  special  warn- 
ing. One,  the  '  famous  gracer  of  Tragedians,' 
who  has  said  in  his  heart  there  is  no  God,  should 
now  '  give  glorie  vnto  his  greatness.'  That 
Marlowe  is  here  intended  has  never  been  doubted. 
Another,  '  Young  Juuenall,  that  byting  satyrist, 
that  lastlie  with  mce  together  writ  a  Comedie,' 
is  advised  not  to  get  many  enemies  by  bitter 
words.  As  to  a  third  who  is  '  no  lesse  deseruing 
than  the  other  two,  in  some  things  rarer,  in 
nothing  inferiour ;  driuen  (as  my  selfe)  to 
extreme  shifts  ;  a  little  have  I  to  say  to  thee.' 
That  little  seems  to  be  not  to  depend  '  on  so 
meane  a  stay '  as  playwriting.  The  '  byting 
satyrist '  has  been  identified  as  Nash,  and  the 
third  playwright  as  Peele. 

Greene  then  goes  on  to  write  :  '  Yes,  trust 
them  not  ;  for  there  is  an  vpstart  Crow,  beauti- 
fied with  our  feathers,  that  with  his  Tygers  heart 
wrapt  in  a  Players  hide,  supposes  he  is  as  well 
able  to  bumbast  out  a  blanke  verse  as  the  best 
of  you  ;  and  being  an  absolute  lohannes  fac 
totum,  is  in  his  owne  conceit  the  onely  Shake- 
scene  in  a  Countrie.' 

That  this  outburst  of  spleen  refers  to  Shake- 
speare cannot  be  doubted,  the  line  '  O  tiger's 
heart  wrapt  in  a  woman's  hide  '  is  found  in 
the   third   part   of   Henry  VI.   (I.  iv.    137),  and 

100 


THE  UNIVERSITY  PENS 

also  in  the  older  version  The  True  Trazedie9 
and  the  play  on  Shakespeare's  name  is  unmis- 
takable. 

When  we  remember  that  these  words  were 
written  by  Greene  on  his  deathbed,  forsaken  of 
all  but  a  kindly  and  devoted  hostess  who  after 
his  death  crowned  his  head  with  a  garland  of 
bays,  we  can  understand  the  bitterness  of  heart 
with  which  he  thought  of  the  prosperity  of  the 
players  for  whom  he  had  written,  whose  fortunes 
he  had  made,  and  who  had  forgotten  him  in  his 
necessity ;  and  his  jealousy  of  one  who,  a  mere 
literary  fac  totum,  had  suddenly  sprung  into  fame 
as  the  most  popular  playwright  of  the  day.  It 
was  hard  for  Greene  to  think  that  the  drama 
which  daily  filled  the  playhouse  with  tens  of 
thousands,  and  made  the  fortunes  of  the  mana- 
gers, was  his  Henry  VI.  ;  and  he  may  be  forgiven 
if  the  heroic  strain  to  which  it  owed  its  vitality 
and  success  presented  itself  to  his  mind  as  mere 
'  shake-scene  '   bombast. 

The  Groatezuorth  of  Wit  was  among  the 
papers  left  by  Robert  Greene  in  the  hands  of 
sundry  booksellers.  The  manuscript  was  copied 
by  Henry  Chettle,  who  some  years  afterwards 
became  a  dramatist.  He  was  at  that  time  what 
would  now  be  called  a  publisher.  c  Greene's 
hand  was  none  of  the  best ;  licensed  it  must  be, 

IOI 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

ere  it  could  be  printed,  which  could  ncuer  be  if 
it  might  not  be  read.' 

Chcttl'j-in  the  preface  to  Kind  Harts  Dream, 
a  kind  of  social  satire  published  by  him  shortly 
after  the  death  of  Greene,  explains  the  part  that 
he  had  taken  in  regard  to  the  Groatsworth  of  Wit. 
He  exonerates  Nash  from  having  any  share  in  the 
production.  For  himself,  he  says  :  '  I  put  some- 
thing out,  but  in  the  whole  booke  not  a  worde  in.' 

Some  such  explanation  was  called  for.  The 
'  Groatsworth  of  wit,  in  which  a  letter  written 
to  diuers  play-makers  is  offensiuely  by  one  or 
two  of  them  taken  ;  and  because  on  the  dead 
they  cannot  be  auenged,  they  wilfully  forge  in 
their  conceites  a  liuing  Author ;  and  after 
tossing  it  to  and  fro,  no  remedy,  but  it  must 
light  on  me.'  As  Chettle  had  during  all  the 
time  of  his  '  conuersing  in  printing  hindred  the 
bitter  inueying  against  schollers,'  he  is  naturally 
hurt  by  the  supposition  that  he  was  party  to  so 
scandalous  a  production. 

'  With  neither  of  them  that  take  offence  was 
I  acquainted  and  with  one  of  them  I  care  not  if  I 
neuer  be.' 

Those  who  took  offence  were  Marlowe  and 
Shakespeare — one  had  been  accused  of  a 
capital  offence,  and  the  other  had  been  lam- 
pooned— for  to  no  others  was  offence  offered. 

102 


THE  UNIVERSITY  PENS 

It  is  easy  to  understand  why  Chettle  should 
have  dissociated  himself  from  Marlowe,  for  he 
was  regarded  as  an  atheist,  and  shortly  before  his 
death  in  the  following  year  a  warrant  was  issued 
from  the  Star  Chamber  for  his  arrest  to  answer 
the  charge  of  atheism.  In  a  subsequent  part  of 
the  preface  he  recurs  to  the  '  first  whose  learning 
I  reverence,'  and  states  that  in  the  perusing  of 
Greene's  book,  he  '  stroke  out  what  then  in 
conscience  I  thought  he  in  some  displeasure 
writ  ;  or  had  it  beene  true,  yet  to  publish  it,  was 
intolerable.' 

Of  Shakespeare  he  writes  :  '  The  other, 
whome  at  that  time  I  did  not  so  much  spare,  as 
since  I  wish  I  had,  for  that  as  I  haue  moderated 
the  heate  of  liuing  writers,  and  might  haue  used 
my  owne  discretion  (especially  in  such  a  case) 
the  Author  being  dead,  that  I  did  not,  I  am  as 
sory  as  if  the  originall  fault  had  beene  my  fault, 
because  my  selfe  haue  seene  his  demeanor  no 
less  ciuill  than  he  excelent  in  the  qualitie  he 
professes  ;  Besides  diuers  of  jvorship  have  re- 
ported his  uprightness  of  dealing,  which  argues 
his  honesty,  and  his  facetious  grace  in  writting, 
that  approoves  his  Art.' 

The  earliest  in  date  of  the  references  to 
Shakespeare  that  have  been  discovered  is  by 
Spenser.    The  next  is  by  Greene,  followed  by  the 

103 


SHAKESPEARE   AND  HIS   FELLOWS 

explanation   and   apology  of  Chcttlc.     Spencer 
and    Chcttle    both   speak   of    Shakespeare    from 
personal  knowledge  and  each  of  them  affords  to 
us  a  glimpse  of  the  personality  of  the  man  whom 
they  knew.     It  is  but  a  glimpse,  but  the  aspect 
of    his    nature     revealed    in    poetic    phrase    by 
Spenser,  and  in  plain  prose  by  Chettle,  is  one  and 
the   same.      To   Spenser  it   appeared   that   '  no 
gentler    shepherd    could    no   where    be    found.' 
When   Chettle    came    to   know   Shakespeare   he 
found  his  demeanour  so  civil,  that  he  was  as 
sorry  for  having  published  Greene's  attack,  as 
if  the  original  fault  had   been  his  own.     More- 
over,    Shakespeare     had     become     known     to 
gentlemen    of    position    by    the    uprightness   of 
his    dealing    as    a    man    of    honour,    and   they 
were  ready  to  testify  to  the  character  that  he 
bore  ;    that  is  to  say,  he  was  possessed  of  the 
essential   qualities   which   were    implied    in    the 
word  '  gentle  '  in  the  sense  in  which  it  was  used 
by  Spenser. 

When  Shakespeare  commenced  dramatist  the 
university  pens  held  the  field.  '  Midway  between 
Lyly  and  his  successful  practice  of  the  drama, 
which  for  the  most  cultivated  men  and  women 
of  his  day,  maintained  and  developed  standards 
supplied  to  him,  at  least  in  part,  by  his  univer- 
sity, and  Thomas  Lodge,  who  put  the  drama 

104 


THE  UNIVERSITY   PENS 

aside  as  beneath  a  cultivated  man  of  manifold 
activities,  stand  Nashe,  Peele  and  Greene.  Nashe 
feeling  the  attraction  of  a  popular  and  finan- 
cially alluring  form,  shows  no  special  fitness  for 
it,  and  gives  it  relatively  little  attention.  Peele, 
properly  endowed  for  his  best  expression  in 
another  field,  spends  his  strength  in  the  drama, 
because,  at  the  time,  it  is  the  easiest  source  of 
revenue,  and  turns  from  the  drama  of  the  culti- 
vated to  the  drama  of  the  less  cultivated  or  the 
uncultivated.  Greene  from  the  first,  is  the 
facile,  adaptive  purveyor  of  wares  to  which  he 
is  helped  by  his  university  experience,  but  to 
which  he  gives  a  highly  popular  presentation. 
Through  Nashe  and  Lodge  the  drama  gains 
nothing.  Passing  through  the  hands  of  Lyly, 
Greene,  and  even  Peele,  it  comes  to  Shakespeare 
something  quite  different  from  what  it  was 
before  they  wrote. 

'  University-bred,  one  and  all,  these  five  men 
were  proud  of  their  breeding.  However  severe 
from  time  to  time  might  be  their  censures  of 
their  intellectual  mother,  they  were  always  ready 
to  take  arms  against  the  unwarranted  assump- 
tion, as  it  seemed  to  them,  of  certain  dramatists 
who  lacked  their  university  training,  and 
to  confuse  them  by  the  sallies  of  their  wit. 
One    and   all,    they    demonstrated    their    right 

105 


SHAKESPEARE   AND  HIS   FELLOWS 

to  the  title  bestowed  on  them — "  University 
wits." '  * 

The  debt  which  literature  owes  to  these  men 
is  best  realised  by  comparing  the  drama  in  the 
form  in  which  they  presented  it  with  the  work 
of  their  predecessors,  lifeless  dramas  in  the 
manner  of  Seneca,  bloody  tragedies,  and  rude 
comedies  like  Ralph  Roister  Doistcr.  They  had 
prepared  the  way  for  the  advent  of  Shakespeare. 
Greene  and  the  three  specially  addressed  by 
him,  Marlowe,  Nash  and  Peele,  were  in  the  fore- 
most rank  of  the  university  pens.  The  greatness 
of  Marlowe  and  his  influence  on  the  life  work  of 
Shakespeare  place  him  in  a  class  by  himself,  and 
his  relations  with  Shakespeare  form  the  subject 
of  a  separate  chapter.  Passing  him  by  for  the 
present,  it  may  be  noted  that  no  trace  can  be 
found  of  cordial  relations  between  Shakespeare 
and  the  university  pens,  such  as  existed  through- 
out his  life  with  his  fellow  players. 

The  lives  and  characters  of  such  representative 
players  as  Burbage,  Hcming  and  Condcll  stand 
out  in  strong  contrast  to  those  of  Greene,  Peele 
and  Nash.  George  Peele,  like  Robert  Greene, 
was  a  typical  representative  of  the  class.  He 
was   a   student  at   Christ   Church,   Oxford,   and 

•  Cambridge   History   of    English    Literature,    Vol.    V.,    Ch.    VI. 
(Professor  G.  P.  Baker). 

106 


THE  UNIVERSITY  PENS 

graduated  M. A.  in  1579.  While  at  the  university- 
he  was  noted  as  a  poet,  and  the  performance  of 
his  translation  of  a  play  of  Euripides  was  cele- 
brated in  two  Latin  poems,  in  one  of  which  the 
social  gaieties  as  well  as  the  academical  success 
of  his  Oxford  career  are  mentioned.  Like  Greene 
he  was  a  successful  playwright,  and  he  also 
resembled  him  in  the  course  of  dissipation  in 
which  his  great  powers  were  wasted.  We  have 
seen  how  Greene,  in  the  Groats  worth  of  Wit, 
appealed  to  him,  as  one  who  had  been,  like  the 
writer,  driven  to  '  extreme  shifts,'  to  mend  his 
way.  He  died  at  about  the  age  of  thirty- 
nine,  and  after  his  death  a  tract  appeared, 
entitled  Merry  conceited  jests  of  George  Peele, 
some  time  a  Student  in  Oxford,  a  collection  of 
facetice,  which  had  no  doubt  a  foundation 
in  fact.* 

Thomas  Nash  matriculated  as  a  sizar  at  St. 
John's  College,  Cambridge,  of  which  he  writes 
as  the  '  sweetest  nurse  of  knowledge  in  all  that 
University.'  He  graduated  B.A.,  and  wrote : 
'  It  is  well  known  I  might  have  been  a  fellow 
if  I  had  would.'  He  also  died  at  an  early  age — 
thirty-four.  *  Till  his  death  he  suffered  the 
keenest  pangs  of  poverty,  and  was  (he  confesses) 
often  so  reduced  as  to  pen  unedifying  "  toyes  for 

*  Diet.  Nat.  Biography. 
IO7 


SHAKESPEARE   AND  HIS   FELLOWS 

gentlemen,"  by  which  he  probably  meant  licen- 
tious songs.'  * 

There  was  little  in  common  between  these 
erratic  men  of  genius  and  the  thrifty  players  who 
were  the  lifelong  fellows  and  friends  of  Shake- 
speare. Besides  their  reckless  Bohemianism, 
there  was  another  characteristic  of  these  uni- 
versity pens  which  did  not  commend  itself  to 
Shakespeare.  It  has  been  said  that  England  in 
the  time  of  Elizabeth  was  a  nest  of  singing  birds. 
Unhappily  the  inmates  of  this  nest,  so  far  from 
agreeing,  wasted  their  time  and  talents  in  libel- 
lous recrimination  and  ungentle  pamphleteering. 
'  The  bitter  inueying  against  schollers  '  was  not 
to  the  taste  of  the  publisher  Chettlc  ;  and  Shake- 
speare's concurrence  in  his  opinion  may  well 
have  been  part  of  the  civil  demeanour  by  which 
he  was  impressed.  Certain  it  is  that  Shakespeare 
stood  outside  the  wordy  warfare  in  which  Lodge 
and  Nash,  and  at  a  later  time  Jonson,  Dekker 
and  Marston,  delighted. 

Chettle  began  to  write  for  the  stage  some  time 
before  the  year  1598,  for  in  that  year  he  is  men- 
tioned by  Meres  in  Palladis  lamia  as  one  of  '  the 
best  for  Comedy  among  us.'  He  did  not  attain 
the  success  which  these  words  seem  to  imply. 
That  he  was  highly  regarded  is  shown  by  the 

•  Diet.  Nat.  Biography  (Sir  Sidney  Lee). 
108 


THE  UNIVERSITY  PENS 

readiness  of  Henslow,  as  appears  by  his  Diary,  to 
assist  him  in  his  pecuniary  troubles.  His 
England's  Mourning  Garland,  published  in  1603, 
after  the  death  of  Elizabeth,  was  well  received. 
It  contains  an  interesting  passage  which  sug- 
gests the  possibility  that  his  acquaintance  with 
Shakespeare,  beginning  in  1592,  may  have 
ripened  into  friendship.  Chettle  addresses  him- 
self '  to  all  true  Louers  of  the  right  gratious 
Queene  Elizabeth  in  her  life,'  and  in  particular, 
to  the  poets  of  the  day,  complaining  that  they 
had  not  celebrated  in  verse  the  memory  of 
the  great  Queen.  Amongst  those  appealed  to 
are  Sidney,  Spenser  and  Chapman.  Chettle's 
appeal  to  Shakespeare,  '  the  siluer  tonged  Meli- 
cert,'  is  printed  elsewhere  (p.  43).  It  met  with 
no  response. 

Ben  Jonson  and  Michael  Drayton  have  been 
brought  into  close  personal  relations  with  Shake- 
speare by  trustworthy  testimony.  At  the  time 
when  Shakespeare  contracted  the  fever  of  which 
he  died  Drayton  and  Jonson  were  with  him  in 
Stratford.  This  we  have  on  the  authority  of  the 
Rev.  John  Ward,  who  became  Vicar  of  Stratford 
in  1662.  The  character  and  history  of  Drayton 
are  well  known,  and  when  they  are  studied  in 
connection  with  the  pitiful  story  of  the  uni- 
versity pens,  we  can  understand  why  Drayton, 

109 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

and  not  they,  is  found  among  the  associates  and 
friends  of  Shakespeare. 

Drayton  was  a  native  of  Warwickshire.  In 
after  life  he  was  a  constant  visitor  at  Clifford 
Chambers,  a  manor-house  in  the  neighbourhood 
of  Stratford,  the  residence  of  Sir  Henry  and 
Lady  Rainsford.  '  Their  lifelong  patronage  of 
Michael  Drayton,  another  Warwickshire  poet 
and  Shakespeare's  friend,  gives  them  an  hon- 
oured place  in  literary  history.  .  .  .'  *  Lady 
Rainsford  before  her  marriage  was  the  adored 
mistress  of  Drayton's  youthful  muse,  and  in  the 
days  of  his  maturity  Drayton,  who  was  always 
an  enthusiastic  lover  of  his  native  country,  was 
the  guest  for  many  months  each  year  of  her 
husband  and  herself  at  Clifford  Chambers,  which, 
as  he  wrote  in  his  Polyolbion,  had  been  many  a 
time  the  Muses'  quiet  port. 

1  Drayton's  host  found  at  Stratford  and  its 
environment  his  closest  friends,  and  several  of 
his  intimacies  were  freely  shared  by  Shakespeare. 
Shakespeare's  son-in-law,  John  Hall,  a  medical 
practitioner  of  Stratford,  reckoned  Lady  Rains- 
ford among  his  early  patients  from  the  first 
years  of  the  century,  and  Drayton  himself,  while 
a  guest  at  Clifford  Chambers,  came  under 
Hall's  professional  care.     The   dramatist's   son- 

•  Life  of  Shakespeare,  p.  468. 

no 


THE  UNIVERSITY   PENS 

in-law  cured  Drayton  of  a  "  tertian  "  by  the 
administration  of  "  syrup  of  violets,"  and 
described  him  in  his  casebook  as  an  "  excellent 
poet." ' 

Drayton  had  written  in  his  Legend  of  Mathilda, 
published  in  1594, 

Lucrece,  of  whom  proude  Rome  hath  boasted  long, 
Lately  reviv'd  to  live  another  age ; 

and  some  years  after  the  death  of  Shakespeare 
he  thus  wrote  in  his  Elegies  : 

Shakespeare,  thou  hadst  as  smooth  a  Comicke  vaine 
Fitting  the  socke,  and  in  thy  natural  braine 
As  strong  conception  and  as  cleere  a  rage 
As  any  one  that  trafiqu'd  with  the  stage. 

Drayton  in  his  life  and  character  presents  a 
marked  contrast  to  Greene  and  to  the  '  quondam 
acquaintances  '  whom  he  addresses.  Sir  Sidney 
Lee  truly  says  :  '  Bohemian  ideals  and  modes 
of  life  had  no  dominant  attraction  for  Shake- 
speare.' His  chosen  associates  are  the  thrifty 
players,  and  among  the  playwrights,  Ben  Jonson 
and  Drayton.  Ben  Jonson,  on  his  own  showing, 
was  not  morally  perfect,  but  his  errors  did  not 
lead  him  into  Bohemia,  and  for  many  years  he 
held  a  position  in  the  literary  world  of  London 
comparable  to  that  held  in  after  ages  by  Dryden 

in 


SHAKESPEARE  AND  HIS   FELLOWS 

and  by  another  Johnson.  Of  Drayton  it  was 
written  :  '  His  moral  character  was  unassailable, 
and  he  was  regarded  by  his  contemporaries  as  a 
model  of  virtue.'  *  '  As  Aulus  Persius,'  writes 
Mercs,  '  is  reputed  among  all  writers  to  be  of 
an  honest  life  and  upright  conversation,  so 
Michael  Drayton  {quern  toties  honoris  et  amoris 
causa  nomino)  among  schollers,  souldiers,  poets, 
and  all  sorts  of  people  is  heldc  for  a  man  of 
vertuous  disposition,  honest  conversation,  and 
well-governed  carriage.'  f  Izaak  Walton,  in  his 
Compleat  Angler,  quotes  a  passage  from  the 
Polyolbion  '  of  Michael  Drayton,  my  honest  old 
friend.'  Such  was  the  character  of  Shake- 
speare's friend. 

Like  Shakespeare,  Drayton  attached  more 
importance  to  his  poems  than  to  his  plays  ;  but 
unlike  Shakespeare,  he  did  not  attain  to  eminence 
as  a  dramatist,  and  the  book  by  which  he  is  best 
known  is  his  Polyolbion.  It  is  what  he  calls  a 
chorographical  description  of  the  rivers,  moun- 
tains, forests,  and  other  geographical  features  of 
Great  Britain.  It  was  published  in  1613,  and  is 
a  really  great  work,  containing  many  passages  of 
true  poetical  beauty,  among  which  may  be  noted 
his  description  of  the  forest  of  Arden.     This  is 

•  Diet.  Nat.  Biography  (A.  H.  Bullcn). 
t  Palladis  1 anna,  1598. 

112 


THE  UNIVERSITY   PENS 

the  man  whom  we  find  associated  with  Ben 
Jonson  in  the  last  days  of  the  life  of  Shakespeare, 
but  Jonson's  relations  with  Shakespeare  were  so 
intimate  and  so  instructive  that  they  must  form 
the  subject  of  a  separate  chapter. 


113 


BEN    JONSON 

If  Ben  Jonson  was  not  the  greatest  of  the 
fellow  poets  and  dramatists  of  Shakespeare — a 
place  which  is  Marlowe's  of  right — he  held  the 
foremost  position  in  the  eyes  of  the  public  of  his 
day.  This  was  inevitable.  He  was,  in  the  words 
of  Swinburne,  a  giant,  but  not  of  the  gods,  and 
giants  are  more  easily  discerned  by  unaided 
vision  than  gods.  '  If  poets  may  be  divided 
into  two  exhaustive  but  not  exclusive  classes — 
the  gods  of  harmony  and  creation,  the  giants  of 
energy  and  invention — the  supremacy  of  Shake- 
speare among  the  gods  of  English  verse  is  not 
more  unquestionable  than  the  supremacy  of 
Jonson  among  its  giants.' 

If  Scotland  had  furnished  this  earlier  and 
greater  Johnson  with  another  Boswell,  the  world 
would  have  had  a  richer  entertainment  than  the 
scanty  crumbs  picked  up  by  Drummond  of 
Hawthornden,  when  Jonson  visited  him  in  his 
home  near  Edinburgh,  and  conversed  with  him 
for  many  days.  Drummond  preserved  a  record 
of    Jonson's   conversation    in    a    paper    entitled 

114 


BEN   JONSON. 

'  Certain  Informations  and  Maners  of  Ben 
Johnson  to  W.  Drummond,'  printed  by  the 
Shakespeare  Society  in  the  year  1842.  The 
'  conversations,'  with  footnotes,  fill  forty-one 
pages  of  the  volume  published  by  the  Society. 
In  all  these  pages  the  name  of  Shakespeare 
appears  twice.  Jonson  said  of  him  that  '  in  a 
play,  he  brought  in  a  number  of  men  saying  they 
had  suffered  shipwreck  in  Bohemia,  wher  ther  is 
no  sea  neer  by  some  100  miles.'  Jonson's 
'  censure  '  of  Shakespeare  is  comprised  in  four 
words  :  '  that  Shakspeer  wanted  arte.'  This 
was  probably  conclusive  with  Drummond,  who 
is  described  by  Sir  Sidney  Lee  as  a  '  learned 
poet.'*  Happily  we  are  not  dependent  for  our 
knowledge  of  Jonson's  appreciation  of  the  genius 
of  Shakespeare,  and  his  affection  for  the  man, 
to  Drummond's  notes  of  his  conversations. 
Drummond  felt  no  interest  in  Shakespeare,  but 
he  has  at  the  end  of  the  '  conversations  '  given 
an  estimate  of  the  character  of  Jonson  which  is 
of  value  in  considering  his  relations  with  Shake- 
speare. '  He  is  a  great  lover  and  praiser  of  him- 
self ;  a  contemnor  and  scorner  of  others  ;  given 
rather  to  losse  a  friend  than  a  jest  :  jealous  of 
every  word  and  action  of  those  about  him 
(especiallie    after    drink,    which    is    one    of    the 

*  Diet.  Nat.  Biography. 
115 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

elements  in  which  he  liveth)  ;  a  dissembler  of 
ill  parts  which  raignc  in  him,  a  braggcr  of  some 
good  that  he  wantcth  ;  thinkcth  nothing  well 
but  what  either  he  himself  or  some  of  his  friends 
and  countrymen  hath  said  or  done  ;  he  is  pas- 
sionately kynde  and  angry  ;  careless  either  to 
gaine  or  keep  ;  vindictive,  but  if  he  be  well 
answered,  at  himself.  For  any  religion,  as  being 
versed  in  both.  Interpreteth  best  sayings  and 
deeds  often  to  the  worst.' 

This  is  a  picture  drawn  in  bold  outline  and 
with  striking  contrasts  of  light  and  shade. 
'  Passionately  kynde  and  angry  ' — in  these  four 
words  we  have  a  key  to  the  understanding  of 
what  was  written  by  Jonson  of  a  successful 
rival  whom  he  regarded  with  mingled  feelings  of 
jealousy  and  affection. 

Jonson  was  born,  probably,  in  the  year  1573. 
He  laid  the  foundation  of  his  vast  classical 
learning  in  Westminster  Grammar  School.  He 
was  '  taken  from  school  and  put  to  a  trade,'  and 
the  degrees  which  he  held  in  Oxford  and  in 
Cambridge  were  '  by  their  favour,  not  his  studie.' 
So  he  told  Drummond.  His  experiences  during 
the  next  few  years  include  a  campaign  in 
Flanders  ;  a  duel  with  a  fellow  actor,  whom  he 
killed,  escaping  the  gallows  by  claiming  benefit 
of  clergy  ;  and  a  change  of  religion,  an  experience 

116 


BEN   JONSON 

which  he  repeated  in  later  years.  He  began  to 
write  for  the  stage  about  the  year  1595.  His 
earliest  efforts  were  in  tragedy,  and  in  1598  we 
find  him  included  by  Francis  Meres  *  with  Shake- 
speare among  the  poets  who  are  best  for 
tragedy. 

His  first  extant  comedy,  Every  Man  in  his 
Humour,  was  successfully  produced  at  the  Globe 
in  1598,  Shakespeare  taking  a  part.  Accord- 
ing to  a  tradition  of  respectable  antiquity 
recorded  by  Rowe,  the  play  when  presented  for 
acceptance  to  the  Lord  Chamberlain's  servants 
was  at  first  rejected,  and  was  afterwards  accepted 
on  the  recommendation  of  Shakespeare.  A 
tradition  of  the  stage  accepted  by  Rowe  should 
not  be  lightly  regarded,  for,  as  we  shall  see  here- 
after, he  had  trustworthy  sources  of  information 
at  his  command,  and  he  exercised  a  wise  dis- 
cretion in  making  use  of  them.  In  a  man  of 
Jonson's  temperament  a  sense  of  obligation  due 
to  the  kindness  of  a  successful  rival  goes  far  to 
account  for  the  conflict  between  jealousy  of  a 
rival,  love  of  the  man,  and  admiration  of  his 
genius,  to  which  this  extraordinary  man  gave 
varying  expression  during  his  lifetime.  It  was 
not  until  after  the  death  of  Shakespeare  that 
feelings  of  love  and  admiration  finally  prevailed. 

*  Palladis  lamia. 
117 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

Such  evidence  as  we  have  of  the  relations  of 
Jonson  with  Shakespeare  during  his  lifetime 
suggest  that  they  were  friendly.  A  story  which 
was  current  not  many  years  after  the  death  of 
Shakespeare  was  included  by  Sir  Nicholas 
L'Estrange,  an  industrious  collector  of  anecdotes, 
among  Merry  Passages  and  Jests,  a  compilation 
from  which  a  selection  were  printed  by  the 
Camden  Society.  Sir  Nicholas  had  the  story 
from  '  Mr.  Dun,'  and  if  he  was,  as  is  supposed, 
the  poet  Dr.  John  Donne,  a  contemporary  of 
Shakespeare,  there  could  be  no  better  authority. 
At  all  events  the  story  bears  the  impress  of  truth. 
It  is  as  follows  :  '  Shake-speare  was  Godfather 
to  one  of  Ben  :  Johnson's  children  and  after  the 
christning  being  in  a  deepe  study,  Johnson  came 
to  cheere  him  up,  and  askt  him  why  he  was  so 
Melancholy  ?  "  No  faith  Ben  ;  (sayes  he)  not 
I,  but  I  have  beene  considering  a  great  while 
what  should  be  the  fittest  gift  for  me  to  bestow 
upon  my  God-child,  and  I  have  resolv'd  at  last  ; 
I  pry'  the  what,  sayes  he  ?  I  faith  Ben  :  I'll 
e'en  give  him  a  douzen  good  Lattin*  Spoones 
and  thou  shalt  translate  them."  If  Dr.  Donne 
had  preserved  for  us  the  ponderous  jest  at  the 
expense  of  Shakespeare's  small  Latin  to  which  this 

•  Latten    was     composition,    something     like    brass,    cf.    Merry 
Wives,  I.  i.  165. 

Il8 


BEN  JONSON 

was  the  retort  courteous  we  could,  in  some  sort, 
realise  the  wit-combats  of  which  Fuller  writes — 

'  Many  were  the  wit-combates  betwixt  him  and 
Ben  Johnson  ;  which  two  I  behold  like  a  Spanish 
great  Gallion  and  an  English  man  of  War : 
Master  Johnson  (like  the  former)  was  built  far 
higher  in  Learning  :  solid,  but  slow  in  his  per- 
formances. Shake-spear,  with  the  English  man 
of  war,  lesser  in  bulk,  but  lighter  in  sailing,  could 
turn  with  all  tides,  tack  about,  and  take  advan- 
tage of  all  winds,  by  the  quickness  of  his  Wit  and 
Invention.'  * 

Fuller  was  born  in  the  lifetime  of  Shakespeare, 
and  he  must  have  received  an  account  of  these 
wit-combats  from  those  who  were  actually 
present,  for  there  was  present  to  his  mind's  eye 
such  a  living  image  that  he  writes  of  them  as  if 
he  himself  had  been  the  eyewitness. 

These  were  the  merry  meetings  of  which 
Francis  Beaumont  wrote, 

What  things  have  we  seen 
Done  at  the  Mermaid  ?    Heard  words  that  have  been 
So  nimble,  and  so  full  of  subtle  flame, 
As  if  that  every  one  from  whence  they  came 
Had  meant  to  put  his  whole  wit  in  a  jest, 
And  had  resolved  to  live  a  fool  the  rest 
Of  his  dull  life. 

*  Worthies  of  England,  1662." 
119 


SHAKESPEARE   AND  HIS   FELLOWS 

The  friendship  which  had  its  origin  in  an  act 
of  kindness  on  the  part  of  Shakespeare  con- 
tinued to  the  end,  notwithstanding  their  rivalry 
as  popular  playwrights.  This  rivalry  is  reflected 
in  the  literature  of  the  day,  and  of  the  next 
succeeding  age.  It  is  the  eternal  rivalry  between 
what  are  commonly  known  as  Nature  and  Art. 
So  it  was  regarded  by  Milton  when  he  wrote, 

Then  to  the  well-trod  stage  anon 

If  Jonson's  learned  sock  be  on, 

Or  sweetest  Shakespeare,  Fancy's  child, 

Warble  his  native  wood  notes  wild. 

Comedy,  not  tragedy,  was  present  to  the  mind  of 
Shakespeare  when,  in  U Allegro,  he  wrote  thus 
of  Shakespeare  :  not  Hamlet,  but  As  You  Like  It, 
and  the  forest  of  Arden.  In  //  Penseroso  he 
writes  in  a  different  strain  : 

Sometime  let  gorgeous  Tragedy, 
In  sceptred  pall,  come  sweeping  by, 
Presenting  Thebes,  or  Pelops'  line, 
Or  the  tale  of  Troy  divine  ; 
Or  what  (though  rare)  of  later  age 
Ennobled  hath  the  buskin'd  stage. 

The  noble  Epitaph  on  the  admirable  dramaticke 
poet,  W .  Shakespeare,  prefixed  to  the  second  folio 
edition,  published  in  1632,  leaves  us  in  no 
doubt  as  to  the  tragedies  by  which  the  buskined 

120 


BEN   JONSON 

stage  had  been  of  later  age,  all  too  rarely, 
ennobled. 

Dear  Sonne  of  Memory,  great  Heire  of  Fame, 

What  needst  thou  such  dull  witnesse  of  thy  Name  ? 

Thou  in  our  wonder  and  astonishment 

Hast  built  thy  selfe  a  lasting  Monument  : 

For  whil'st  to  th'  shame  of  slow-endeavouring  Art 

Thy  easie  numbers  flow. 

( Milton,  a  strict  Puritan,  when  he  wrote  these 

words  of  a  dramatic  poet,  and  allowed  his  verse 
to  be  prefixed  to  a  collection  of  his  plays,  showed 
how  profoundly  he  had  been  affected  by  the 
work  of  Shakespeare.  The  study  of  his  poetry 
created  in  the  mind  of  Milton  a  sense  of  personal 
attachment  to  Shakespeare.  He  is  '  My  Shake- 
speare,' '  Sweetest  Shakespeare,'  and  '  dear 
Sonne  of  Memory.'  His  '  wood  notes  wild  ' 
are  contrasted  with  the  '  learned  sock '  of 
Jonson,  and  in  tragedy  his  easy  numbers  flow 
to  the  shame  of  slow-endeavouring  Art. 

Milton  wrote  thus  of  Shakespeare  in  the  life- 
time of  Jonson,  at  a  time  when  the  rivalry 
between  the  works  of  the  two  great  dramatists 
was  at  its  height .'-^rThat  this  rivalry  continued 
to  be  the  talk  of  the  town,  and  that  the  verdict 
of  the  ordinary  playgoer,  like  Milton's,  was  for 
Shakespeare  and  Nature,  may  be  learned  from 
verses  by  Leonard  Digges,  prefixed  to  the  Folio 

121 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

of  1640.  Digges  was  a  member  of  a  family  dis- 
tinguished in  science  as  well  as  in  literature. 
His  father  was  a  celebrated  mathematician, 
who  had  a  seat  in  the  Parliament  of  1572.  Other 
members  of  the  family  were  sufficiently  dis- 
tinguished to  find  places  in  the  Dictionary  of 
National  Biography.  Leonard  Digges  was  a 
good  classical  scholar,  well  acquainted  with 
Spanish  and  French.  He  was  a  poet,  and  pub- 
lished in  1 61 7  a  verse  translation  from  Claudian. 
He  may  be  accepted  as  a  representative  of  the 
intelligent  literary  criticisms  of  the  day.  Verses 
by  Digges  were  prefixed  to  the  Folio  of  1623, 
and  a  more  elaborate  composition  to  the  edition 
of  1640.  Of  him  Sir  Sidney  Lee  writes  :  '  Few 
contemporaries  wrote  more  sympathetically  of 
Shakespeare's  greatness.' 

Digges  and  Kempe  are  of  one  mind  in  holding 
that  Shakespeare  had  outstripped  the  '  needy 
Poetasters  of  the  age  ' — the  university  pens — 
and  even  such  a  competitor  as  Ben  Jonson. 

Tis  the  fate 
Of  richer  veines,  prime  judgements  that  have  far'd 
The  worse,  with  this  deceased  man  compar'd 
So  have  I  seene,  when  Cesar  would  appeare, 
And  on  the  Stage  at  halfe-sword  parley  were, 
Brutus  and  Cassius  :  oh  how  the  Audience 
Were  ravish'd,  with  what  wonder  they  went  thence, 

122 


BEN  JONSON 

When  some  new  day  they  would  not  brooke  a  line, 

Of  tedious  (though  well  laboured)  Catiline  ; 

Sejanus  too  was  irkesome,  they  priz'de  more 

Honest  Iago,  or  the  jealous  Moore. 

And  though  the  Fox  and  subtill  Alchimist, 

Long  intermitted  could  not  quite  be  mist, 

Though  these  have  sham'd  all  the  Ancients,  and  night 

raise, 
Their  Authours  merit  with  a  crowne  of  Bayes. 
Yet  these  sometimes,  even  at  a  friends  desire 
Acted,  have  scarce  defrai'd  the  Seacoale  fire 
And  doore-keepers ;   when  let  but  Falstaffe  come, 
Hall,  Poines,  the  rest,  you  scarce  shall  have  a  roome. 
All  is  so  pester'd  ;   let  but  Beatrice 
And  Benedicke  be  seene,  loe  in  a  trice 
The  Cockpit,  Galleries,  Boxes,  all  are  full 
To  hear  Malvoglio  that  crosse  gartered  gull. 

This  was  the  drastic  purge  administered  by 
Shakespeare,  of  which  Kempe  spoke  in  The 
Returne  from  Pernassus  ;  houses  so  badly  filled 
that,  even  when  a  favourite  play  was  bespoken, 
the  money  would  scarce  defray  the  cost  of  sea- 
coal  fire  and  doorkeepers,  while  Henry  IV., 
Much  Ado  and  Twelfth  Night  drew  such  crowds 
that  a  seat  might  hardly  be  found,  and  the 
reason  assigned  by  Digges  is  the  same  as  that 
noted  by  Milton  ;  Catiline  is  tedious,  though 
well  laboured,  while  Shakespeare's  work  is 

The  patterne  of  all  wit 
Art  without  Art,  unparalel'd  as  yet. 

123 


SHAKESPEARE    AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

So  drastic  was  the  purge  that,  according  to 
Kempe,  it  made  Ben  Jonson  '  beray  his  credit,' 
that  is  to  say,  '  show  the  true  nature  of  the 
character  with  which  he  was  credited.'  This  is 
the  nearest  approach  that  can  be  made,  with  the 
aid  of  the  New  English  Dictionary,  to  this 
phrase.  Jonson,  in  the  opinion  of  the  players, 
bewrayed  his  credit,  and  showed  himself  in  his 
true  character  of  an  envious  detractor  when  he 
expressed  a  wish  that  Shakespeare  had  blotted 
a  thousand  lines. 

Much  allowance  should  be  made  for  Jonson, 
when,  suffering  under  the  effects  of  Shakespeare's 
purge,  he,  now  and  then,  indulged  in  a  sneer  at  a 
successful  rival,  who  was  so  far  without  art  as 
to  ignore  the  unities  of  time,  place  and  action. 
In  such  a  mood  he  tells  the  audience  in  the 
Prologue  to  Every  Man  in  his  Humour  that  he 
will  not  purchase  their  delight 

At  such  a  rate 
As,  for  it,  he  himself  must  justly  hate  : 
To  make  a  child,  now  swadled,  to  proceede 
Man,    and    then    shoote    up,    in    one    beard    and 

weede, 
Past  threescore  years  :   or,  with  three  rustie  swords, 
And  helpe  of  some  foot-and-halfe-foote  words, 
Fight  over  Torke,  and  Lancaster's  long  jarres  ; 
And  in  the  tyring-house,  bring  wounds,  to  scarres. 

124 


BEN  JONSON 

Here  and  there  traces  can  be  found  of  the  inter- 
mittent action  of  this  purge.  The  New  Inn  pro- 
duced in  1629  failed  to  fill  the  playhouses,  and 
Jonson  wrote  in  some  lines  prefixed  to  the  play- 
when  published  in  1631, 

No  doubt  some  mouldy  tale, 

Like  Pericles,  and  stale 
As  the  shrieve's  crusts,  and  nasty  as  his  fish 
scraps,  out  of  every  dish 

Throwne  forth,  and  rak't  into  the  common  tub, 
May  keepe  up  the  Play-club. 

In  the  Induction  to  Bartholomew  Fair  the 
Stagekeeper,  introducing  the  piece,  says  :  *  If 
there  be  never  a  servant-monster  in  the  Fayre, 
who  can  helpe  it,  he  says  ;  nor  a  nest  of 
Antiques?'  He  is  loth  to  make  Nature  afraid 
in  his  Playes,  '  like  those  that  beget  Tales, 
Tempests  and  such  like  Drolleries,  to  mixe  his 
head  with  other  mens  heeles.'  And  through- 
out his  life  a  line  which  he  attributes  to  Julius 
Caesar,  but  which,  as  he  quotes  it,  is  not  to 
be  found  in  any  printed  copy  of  the  play,  was 
to  him  a  source  of  genuine  delight.  In  the 
Prologue  to  the  Staple  of  News  this  passage 
occurs  : 

Expectation.     I  can  doe  that  too  if  I  have  cause. 
Prologue.      Cry  you  mercy,  you  never  did  wrong  but 
with  just  cause. 

125 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

That  Jonson  could  be  '  angry '  is  true  ;  but 
that,  at  the  bottom  of  his  heart,  in  his  feelings 
towards  Shakespeare  he  was  '  passionately 
kynde  '  will  presently  appear. 

Many  were  the  quarrels  of  Ben  Jonson,  in 
which  he  bore  himself  like  a  giant.  We  are  only 
concerned  with  one  ;  the  famous  literary  war- 
fare carried  on  for  years  by  Marston,  Dckkcr  and 
Jonson.  Shakespeare  took  no  part  in  this 
rather  unseemly  conflict.  He  cared  for  none  of 
those  things.  But  as  his  name  was  introduced 
into  a  play  in  which  the  fight  is  mentioned,  and 
as  an  attempt  has  been  made  by  some  critics 
to  implicate  him  in  the  quarrel,  it  ought  not  to 
be  overlooked. 

The  origin  of  the  quarrel  was  described  by 
Jonson  in  his  conversations  with  Drummond. 
He  had  many  quarrels  with  Marston,  '  beat 
him,  and  took  his  pistol  from  him,  wrote  his 
■poetaster  on  him  ;  the  beginning  of  them  were 
that  Marston  represented  him  on  the  stage  in 
his  youth  given  to  venery.'  The  origin  of  his 
quarrel  with  Dekker  is  obscure.  In  1629  Jonson 
told  Drummond  that  Dekker  was  a  knave. 
This  was  a  reminiscence  of  the  old  quarrel 
which  took  a  literary  form  in  Cynthia's  Revels 
produced  in  1600,  in  which  Dekker  and  Marston 
were  satirised  in  the  characters  of  Hedon  and 

126 


BEN   JONSON 

Anaides.  Marston  and  Dekker  were  engaged  in 
the  preparation  of  a  joint  attack  on  Jonson- 
Meanwhile,  Jonson  forestalled  them  by  the 
Poetaster  (1601),  in  which  he  demolished  with 
his  giant's  club  not  only  Marston  and  Dekker, 
but  lawyers,  soldiers  and  actors.  The  quarrels 
and  reconciliation  of  the  rival  dramatists  is  a 
curious,  and  not  edifying,  chapter  in  the  literary 
history  of  the  Elizabethan  age.  Some  Shake- 
spearian commentators  have  exercised  their  in- 
genuity in  interpreting  certain  passages  in  the 
works  of  Shakespeare  as  references  to  this 
quarrel,  but  happily  without  success.  It  would 
have  been  more  to  the  purpose  to  note  with 
satisfaction  that  Shakespeare  stood  outside  the 
wordy  strife. 

Two  of  the  plays  which  had  their  origin  in  this 
contest  are  deserving  of  attention.  The  Poetaster 
is  possessed  of  literary  merit.  There  is  a  fine 
passage  in  praise  of  Virgil,  who  is  exalted  as  the 
chief  of  the  Latin  poets.  It  is  supposed  by  some 
that  by  Virgil  Shakespeare  has  been  intended, 
and  that  he  was  introduced  into  the  piece  by 
way  of  contrast  to  Marston  and  Dekker.  If  this 
were  so,  the  play  would,  indeed,  be  deserving  of 
note  as  regards  the  relations  of  Jonson  and 
Shakespeare. 

The  central  idea  of  the  Poetaster  is  the  arraign- 

127 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

mcnt  on  the  prosecution  of  Horace,  of  Crispinus, 
'  my  brisk  Poetaster '  and  Demetrius,  '  his 
poor  Journeyman.'  Marston  is  Crispinus  ; 
Dekker,  Demetrius  ;  and  Horace,  of  course, 
Ben  Jonson.  The  indictment,  drawn  by  Tibullus, 
is  under  the  Statute  of  Calumny,  Lex  Ruminia. 
The  offence  is,  that  the  prisoners,  not  having 
the  fear  of  Phoebus,  or  his  shafts,  before  their 
eyes,  contrary  to  the  peace  of  their  liege  lord, 
Augustus  Caesar,  maliciously  went  about  to  de- 
prave and  calumniate  the  person  and  writings 
of  Quintus  Horatius  Flaccus,  poet  and  priest  to 
the  Muses,  who  is  Ben  Jonson.  The  prisoners 
are  convicted  on  the  evidence  of  their  own 
writings,  and  sentenced  by  Virgil  to  suitable 
punishment. 

In  the  first  scene  Ovid  is  caught  by  his  father, 
Ovid,  senior,  in  the  act  of  composing  a  poem 
which  we  know  as  El.  15,  Jmor.,  Lib.  1,  of  which 
Jonson  gives  his  version  in  English.  He  is 
warned  of  the  approach  of  his  father,  Ovid, 
senior,  and  hastily  puts  on  the  gown  and  cap 
of  a  student.  His  father  intends  him  to  be  a 
lawyer,  and  is  indignant  to  find  him  a  poet  and 
playmaker.  '  Name  me  a  profest  poet,'  he  says 
to  his  son,  *  that  his  poetry  did  ever  afford  him 
so  much  as  a  competency.'  He  leaves,  telling 
his   son   to   keep   his   chamber   and   fall   to  his 

128 


BEN   JONSON 

studies.    Ovid,  junior,  is  at  work  when  Tibullus 
comes  in,  but  at  '  law  cases  in  verse.' 

Troth  if  I  live  I  will  new  dress  the  law 
In  sprightly  Poesy's  habiliments. 

The  whole  of  this  act  is  excellent  comedy,  with 
amusing  attacks  on  the  law  and  lawyers.  The 
succeeding  acts  do  not,  regarded  from  this  point 
of  view,  come  up  to  the  same  level.  Jonson's 
objects  were  twofold.  To  cover  Marston  and 
Dekker  with  ridicule,  in  the  characters  of 
Crispinus  and  Demetrius,  and  to  associate  him- 
self, in  the  character  of  Horace,  with  the  great 
poets  of  the  Augustan  age,  and  in  particular 
with  Ovid,  Tibullus  and  Virgil. 

The  kind  of  classical  medley  which  was 
adopted  had  the  incidental  advantage  that  it 
admitted  of  the  introduction  of  translations  in 
verse  of  well-known  passages  from  these  poets. 
Jonson  valued  himself  specially  on  his  transla- 
tions :  '  As  for  his  translations  he  was  perfectly 
incorrigible  there  ;  for  he  maintained  to  the  last 
that  they  were  the  best  part  of  his  works.'  * 
He  succeeded  in  impressing  this  view  on  Drum- 
mond,  who  writes  in  Conversations :  i  above  all 
he  excelleth  in  a  Translation.'  Virgil  was  to 
Jonson  the  King  of  Latin  poets.     He  writes  of 

*  Works,  Ed.  Gifford,  Vol.  II.,  p.  474. 
s  I29  K 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

him  as  '  the  incomparable  Virgil.'  He  is  placed 
at  the  right  hand  of  Caesar.  His  address  con- 
sists of  a  rhyming  translation  of  some  lines  from 
the  fourth  book  of  the  Aeneid.  Jonson  was  justly 
proud  of  his  version  of  the  lines  beginning 
Farna  malum,  quo  non  aliud  vclocius  ullum,  for  it 
compares  favourably  with  Dryden's.  To  suggest 
that  Shakespeare  is  presented  in  the  character  of 
Virgil  is  not  in  accordance  with  the  purpose  of  the 
drama.  There  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  the 
Poetaster  was  written  in  praise  of  any  of  Jonson's 
contemporaries.  The  primary  object  was  the 
castigation  of  Marston  and  Dekker  ;  a  subordi- 
nate one,  the  glorification  of  Virgil,  and  of  Jonson, 
his  translator.  In  the  acutest  phase  of  the  rivalry 
between  Jonson  and  Shakespeare,  it  is  not 
likely  that  he  would  have  taken  occasion  to 
exalt  his  rival  above  all  his  contemporaries. 
The  lines  spoken  by  Horace  in  praise  of  Virgil 
might  have  been  written  of  Shakespeare,  and 
also  of  other  great  poets.  But  if  Jonson  were  to 
write  in  praise  of  Shakespeare,  he  would  hardly 
have  selected  his  learning  for  special  com- 
mendation. 

Hor.     His  learning   savours  not  the  school-like 
gloss, 
That   most   consists   in  echoing  words  and  terms 
And  soonest  wins  a  man  an  empty  name  ; 

130 


BEN   JONSON 

Nor  any  long  or  far-fetched  circumstance 
Wrap'd  in  the  curious  generalities  of  arts  ; 
But  a  direct  and  analytic  sum 
Of  all  the  worth  and  first  effects  of  arts. 

The  Returne  from  Pernassus  was  produced 
while  the  Poetaster  was  the  talk  of  the  town.  His 
Poetaster  was  the  pill  which  Ben  Jonson  '  brought 
up  Horace  giving  the  poets,'  according  to  Kempe. 
The  significance  of  the  piece  was  thoroughly 
understood  at  the  time.  The  intelligent  author 
of  the  Returne,  so  far  from  interpreting  the 
Poetaster  as  a  glorification  of  Shakespeare,  repre- 
sents the  players  as  taking  part  in  the  rivalry 
between  Shakespeare  and  Jonson.  They  were, 
of  course,  on  the  side  of  Shakespeare,  and  gloried 
in  the  purge  of  empty  houses,  by  the  administra- 
tion of  which  the  pestilent  Jonson  met  with  his 
desert  at  the  hands  of  their  fellow  Shakespeare  ; 
a  shrewd  fellow,  indeed. 

It  was  not  until  after  the  death  of  Shakespeare 
that  Jonson  revealed  the  side  of  his  nature 
which  Drummond  noted  as  'passionately  kynde.' 
In  the  year  of  Shakespeare's  death  he  had  pub- 
lished in  a  folio  volume  a  collection  of  his  plays, 
under  the  title  of  his  Works,  a  title  which 
brought  upon  him  a  certain  amount  of  ridicule, 
as  plays  were  not  then  regarded  as  literature 
deserving  of  so  pretentious  a  name.    These  plays 

131 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

were  carefully  edited.  It  may  not  have  occurred 
to  Jonson  that  the  work  of  collecting  and  editing 
the  works  of  Shakespeare  would  have  been 
better  done  by  a  man  of  letters  than  by  his 
fellow  players.  At  all  events,  the  task  was  not 
undertaken  by  him,  and  a  volume  published  in 
1623  under  the  modest  title  of  Mr.  William 
Shakespeare's  Comedies,  Histories  and  Tragedies, 
presents  a  marked  contrast  in  pretension,  as  well 
as  in  editing,  to  the  Works  of  1616.  But  when 
Jonson  took  up  his  pen  at  the  request  of  the 
players  and  wrote  some  lines  '  to  the  memory 
of  my  beloued,  the  Avthor,  Mr.  William  Shake- 
speare and  what  he  has  left  us,'  all  feelings  of 
rivalry  and  jealousy  disappeared,  and  the  better 
side  of  his  nature  found  expression  in  words 
which  share  the  immortality  of  him  of  whom 
they  were  written  : 

Soule  of  the  Age 
The  Applause  !  delight  !  the  wonder  of  our  stage  ! 

In  these  lines  and  in  the  following  where  he 
would  tell 

how  farre  thou  didst  our  Lily  out-shine 
Or  sporting  Kid,  or  Marlowes  mighty  line, 

we  have  his  true  estimate  of  the  greatness  of 
Shakespeare. 

132 


BEN   JONSON 

He  was  not  of  an  age,  but  for  all  time. 

This  noble  line  will  be  quoted  at  each  recurring 
centenary  so  long  as  the  English  language  is 
spoken. 

Then  his  thoughts  turn  from  contemplation 
of  the  poet  to  the  constant  friend,  and  perhaps 
with  a  regretful  remembrance  of  some  things 
that  he  had  said  of  Shakespeare's  neglect  of  the 
unities  and  of  certain  other  artificial  canons  of 
dramatic  art,  he  adds 

Yet  must  I  not  giue  Nature  all :   Thy  Art 
My  gentle  Shakespeare,  must  enioy  a  part, 

and  in  the  address  to  the  reader  prefixed  to  the 
Folio,  recurring  to  the  personal  characteristics 
expressed  by  the  word  '  gentle  '  he  writes 

This  Figure,  that  thou  here  seest  put, 
It  was  for  gentle  Shakespeare  cut. 

Five-and-twenty  years  after  the  death  of 
Shakespeare,  a  collection  of  essays,  which  had 
been  written  by  Jonson,  was  published  under  the 
title  Timber,  or  Discoveries  made  upon  Men  and 
Matter,  in  which  some  of  the  finest  examples  of  the 
prose  of  the  age  are  to  be  found.  What  he  writes 
of  his  relations  with  Shakespeare  is  intended  as 
an  apologia,  addressed  to  posterity  : 

'  I  remember  the  Players  have  often  men- 
tioned it  as  an  honour  to  Shakespeare  that  in  his 

133 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

writing  (whatsoever  he  penn'd)  hee  never  blotted 
out  line.  My  answer  hath  becne,  would  he  had 
blotted  a  thousand,  which  they  thought  a 
malevolent  speech.  I  had  not  told  posterity 
this,  but  for  their  ignorance,  who  choose  that 
circumstance  to  commend  their  friend  by,  wherein 
he  most  faulted.  And  to  justifie  mine  owne 
candor  (for  I  loved  the  man,  and  doe  honour  his 
memory  (on  this  side  idolatry)  as  much  as  any). 
Hee  was  (indeed)  honest  and  of  an  open  and  free 
nature  :  had  an  excellent  Phantsie  ;  brave  notions 
and  gentle  expressions  ;  wherein  he  flow'd  with 
that  facility,  that  sometimes  it  was  necessary 
that  he  should  be  stop'd  ;  Sujflaminandus  erat ; 
as  Augustus  said  of  Hatcrius.  His  wit  was  in  his 
owne  power  ;  would  the  rule  of  it  had  beene  so. 
Many  times  hee  fell  into  those  things,  could  not 
escape  laughter.  As  when  hee  said  in  the  person 
of  Caesar,  one  speaking  to  him  ;  Caesar  thou 
dost  me  wrong.  Hee  replyed,  Caesar  never  did 
wrong  but  with  just  cause  ;  and  such  like  ;  which 
were  ridiculous.  But  he  redeemed  his  vices  with 
his  vertues.  There  was  even  more  in  him  to  be 
praysed,  than  to  be  pardoned.'* 

The  concluding  words,   in  which  he  finds   in 
Shakespeare    more    to    be    praised    than    to    be 

•  Timber,  or   Discoveries   made  upon   Men   and   Matter.     Works, 
1641. 

!34 


BEN   JONSON 

pardoned,  read  strangely.  They  were  perhaps 
prompted  by  memory  of  the  '  purge,'  and  they 
should  be  overlooked  for  the  sake  of  the  noble 
words  in  which  Jonson  does  honour  to  the 
memory  of  the  man. 

'  Honest  and  of  an  open  and  free  nature,' 
these  are  the  qualities  which  Henry  Chettle 
found  in  the  man  who  had  been  traduced  by 
Greene,  and  they  are  essential  parts  of  the 
character  and  nature  which  Spenser  had,  many 
years  before,  discerned  in  Aetion.  The  influence 
which  Shakespeare  had  obtained  over  an  intellect 
of  the  giant  force  of  Jonson's  reveals  to  us  a 
different  aspect  of  his  nature  from  that  which  is 
suggested  by  his  relations  with  Spenser  or  with 
the  players.  The  indomitable  force  of  will  by 
which  Shakespeare  gained  mastery  over  a  fate 
which  at  one  time  seemed  to  be  invincible 
accords  with  the  character  which  compelled  the 
honour,  on  this  side  idolatry,  paid  to  him  by  a 
man  so  great,  and  little  given  to  worship  as 
Jonson,  '  a  great  lover  and  praiser  of  himself  ; 
a  contemnor  and  scorner  of  others.' 

We  have  no  evidence  of  affectionate  regard 
for  Jonson,  such  as  is  afforded  by  his  gift  of 
mourning  rings  to  his  fellow  players,  and  his 
tributes  to  the  memory  of  Spenser  and  of 
Marlowe.    If  Drummond's  sketch  of  the  character 

135 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

of  Jonson  approaches  the  truth,  his  nature  and 
Shakespeare's  were  not  sympathetic.  But  they 
lived  on  terms  of  friendship.  They  took  part 
in  the  witcombats  at  the  Mermaid  tavern, 
and  in  family  gatherings,  and  Jonson,  with 
Drayton,  was  with  Shakespeare  at  the  time 
when  he  contracted  the  fever  of  which  he  died. 


136 


CHRISTOPHER    MARLOWE 

Marlowe  stands  by  himself  among  the  fel- 
lows and  contemporaries  of  Shakespeare,  for  of 
him  alone  can  it  be  said  that  he  was  the  Master 
of  Shakespeare.  '  He  first,  and  he  alone, 
guided  Shakespeare  into  the  right  way  of  work  ; 
his  music,  in  which  there  is  no  echo  of  any  man's 
before  him,  found  its  own  echo  in  the  more  pro- 
longed, but  hardly  more  exalted,  harmony  of 
Milton.  He  is  the  greatest  discoverer,  the  most 
daring  and  inspired  pioneer  in  all  our  poetic 
literature.  Before  him  there  was  neither  genuine 
blank  verse  nor  a  genuine  tragedy  in  our  language. 
After  his  arrival  the  way  was  prepared,  the  paths 
made  straight,   for  Shakespeare.'  * 

Christopher,  or  Kit,  Marlowe  as  he  was 
familiarly  known,  is  one  of  whose  life  and 
character  trustworthy  information  is  to  be 
desired,  not  only  on  account  of  his  greatness  as  a 
poet,  but  by  reason  of  the  influence  which  he 
exerted  on  one  whose  name  is  among  the  greatest, 
if  not  the  greatest  in  all  literature. 

He    was    born   in    Canterbury   in    1564.     He 

*  A.  C.  Swinburne,  Encyclopedia  Britannica. 
137 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

matriculated  as  a  pensioner  in  Corpus  Christi 
College,  Cambridge,  and  graduated  as  B.A.  in 
1583,  and  M.A.  in  1587.  His  earliest  play, 
Tamburlaine,  was  licensed  on  the  14th  of  August, 
1 590,  and  published  in  the  same  year.  Of  the  early 
years  of  his  life  we  have  no  certain  knowledge. 
It  has  been  suggested  that  on  leaving  the 
university  he  joined  a  company  of  players,  and 
also  that  he  saw  some  military  service  in  the 
Low  Countries.  But  there  is  no  contemporary 
evidence  in  support  of  either  suggestion.  In  a 
book  entitled  The  Theatre  of  God's  'Judgments, 
published  in  1597,  four  years  after  the  death  of 
Marlowe,  he  is  described  as  '  by  profession  a 
scholler,  brought  up  from  his  youth  in  the  uni- 
versitie  of  Cambridge,  but  by  practice  a  play- 
maker  and  a  poet  of  scurrilitie.'  The  author, 
Thomas  Beard,  a  Puritan  divine,  was  the  school- 
master of  Oliver  Cromwell  at  Huntingdon.  He 
was  educated  at  Cambridge,  and  held  the  degree 
of  D.D.  This  book  contains  the  earliest  account 
of  the  tragical  death  of  Marlowe,  which  the 
author  regarded  as  a  judgment  brought  upon 
him  by  his  atheistical  opinions.  The  account 
here  given  of  the  death  of  Marlowe  is  utterly 
untrustworthy,  but  what  is  said  by  Beard  to 
the  credit  of  Marlowe  may  be  accepted  as  prob- 
ably true.      What  is  meant  by  the  words  '  by 

138 


CHRISTOPHER    MARLOWE 

profession  a  scholler  '  is  uncertain.  It  may  mean 
that,  like  Beard,  he  lived  by  teaching,  and  in  this 
way  made  a  profession  of  his  scholarship.  More 
probably,  it  was  a  statement  of  the  reputation 
as  a  scholar  which  he  had  in  the  University  of 
Cambridge,  of  which  Beard  was  a  graduate. 
'  While  a  student  Marlowe  mainly  confined  him- 
self to  the  Latin  classics,  and  probably  before 
leaving  Cambridge  he  translated  Ovid's  Amores 
into  English  heroic  verse.  His  rendering,  which 
was  not  published  until  after  his  death,  does 
full  justice  to  the  sensuous  warmth  of  the 
original.  He  is  also  credited  at  the  same  period 
with  a  translation  of  Colathon's  Rape  of  Helen, 
but  this  is  no  longer  extant.'  His  unfinished 
paraphrase  of  the  '  Hero  and  Leander  of  Musaeus, 
when  completed  by  George  Chapman,  had  a 
popularity  comparable  to  the  first  heir  of  Shake- 
speare's invention.  Marlowe's  translation  of  The 
First  Book  of  Lucan's  Pharsalia  into  epic  blank 
verse  was  published  in  1600,  and  reprinted  by 
Percy  in  his  specimens  of  blank  verse  before 
Milton.'*  After  his  arrival  in  London  we  find 
him  among  the  men  of  letters  of  all  classes  and 
tastes  who  were  associated  with  Sir  Walter 
Raleigh,  and  it  was  probably  in  this  society  that 
he  became  a  freethinker   in  regard  to  religion. 

*  Diet.  Nat.  Biography  (Sir  Sidney  Lee). 
139 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

4  Although  he  [Raleigh]  did  not  personally 
adopt  the  scepticism  in  matters  of  religion 
which  was  avowed  by  many  Elizabethan  authors, 
it  attracted  his  speculative  cast  of  mind,  and  he 
sought  among  the  sceptics  his  closest  com- 
panions. .  .  .  With  Christopher  Marlowe,  whose 
religious  views  were  equally  heterodox,  he  was 
in  equally  confidential  relations.  Izaak  Walton 
testifies  that  he  wrote  the  well-known  answer  to 
Marlowe's  familiar  lyric,  Come  live  with  me  and  be 
my  love.''* 

Marlowe  was  on  terms  of  intimate  friendship 
with  George  Chapman,  one  of  the  most  inter- 
esting characters  of  the  Elizabethan  age.  Chap- 
man did  not  hold  the  degree  of  either  of  the 
universities,  and  his  life  and  character  differed 
widely  from  those  of  the  university  pens.  Wood 
(Athen.  Oxon.)  describes  Chapman  as  '  a  person 
of  most  revered  aspect,  religious  and  temperate, 
qualities  rarely  meeting  in  a  poet.'  Of  all  the 
English  dramatists,  Charles  Lamb  thought  that 
Chapman  approached  nearest  to  Shakespeare  in 
descriptive  and  didactic  passages.  His  trans- 
lation of  Homer,  with  many  defects,  has  some- 
what of  the  spirit  of  the  original,  and  among  the 
admirers  of  this  fine  old  version  are  Dryden, 
Pope,  Coleridge,  and  Charles  Lamb.     But  Chap- 

•  Diet.  Nat.  Biography,  tit.  '  Raleigh.' 
I4O 


CHRISTOPHER    MARLOWE 

man's  name  is  best  known  to  the  present  genera- 
tion by  Keat's  fine  sonnet  written  '  on  first 
looking  into  Chapman's  Homer  '  : 

Oft  of  one  wide  expanse  had  I  been  told 
That  deep-brow'd  Homer  ruled  as  his  demesne  ; 
Yet  did  I  never  breathe  its  pure  serene 
Till  I  heard  Chapman  speak  out  loud  and  bold  : 
Then  felt  I  like  some  watcher  of  the  skies 
When  a  new  planet  swims  into  his  ken. 

Marlowe's  beautiful  poem,  Hero  and  Leander, 
unfinished  at  his  death,  was  published  in  1598. 
It  was  afterwards  completed  by  Chapman,  and 
published  in  this  form  in  the  same  year.  Chap- 
man says  that  Marlowe  '  drunk  to  me  half  this 
Musaean  story,'  which  implies  that  he  had  been 
shown  the  unfinished  tale.  From  some  words 
in  Chapman's  addition  it  appears  to  have  been 
completed  at  the  '  late  desires  '  of  Marlowe. 

A  career  so  full  of  promise  and  of  early  per- 
formance had  a  tragical  ending.  The  burial 
register  of  the  church  of  St.  Nicholas,  Deptford, 
contains  this  entry  :  '  Christopher  Marlow, 
slain  by  ffrancis  Archer  the  1  of  June  1593.' 
Marlowe  was  then  in  the  thirtieth  year  of  his  age. 
Nothing  more  is  known  with  certainty. 

Cut  in  the  branch  that  might  have  grown  full  straight, 
And  burned  is  Apollo's  laurel  bough.  * 

*  The  Tragical  History  of  Doctor  Eaustus,  Sc.  XVI. 

141 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

The  earliest  notice  of  the  death  of  Marlowe  is 
in  the  book  already  referred  to  by  Thomas  Beard, 
published  in  1597.  The  Puritan  divine,  in  his 
desire  to  improve  the  occasion,  gives  an  account 
of  dying  blasphemies  of  Marlowe,  leading  to  the 
conclusion  that  his  death  was  '  not  only  a 
manifest  signe  of  God's  Judgment,  but  also  a 
horrible  and  fcarefull  to  all  that  beheld  him.' 
This  account  would  be  read  with  pain  by  every 
lover  of  Marlowe,  if  it  were  not  obviously  a  tissue 
of  lies.  Marlowe  '  not  onely  in  word  blasphemed 
the  Trinitie,  but  also  (as  is  credibly  reported) 
wrote  bookes  against  it,  affirming  our  Saviour 
to  be  but  a  deceiver.'  Other  things  were  said 
which  need  not  be  recorded,  as  the  existence  of 
any  such  book  is  a  pure  fabrication.  Beard's 
account  of  the  occurrence  is  equally  devoid  of 
truth.  According  to  him  it  took  place  in 
'  London  streets,'  Marlowe  dying  from  a  wound 
inflicted  by  himself.  That  Marlowe  died  on  the 
spot  with  an  oath  on  his  lips  to  the  terror  of  the 
beholders  is  a  palpable  falsehood,  for  he  sur- 
vived the  fatal  blow  long  enough  to  convey  to 
Chapman  his  '  late  desires,'  which  were  carried 
out  by  the  completion  of  his  Hero  and  Leandcr. 

The  respectable  author  of  Palladis  lamia 
(1598),  Francis  Meres,  had  received  a  different 
version  of  the  occurrence,  and,  yielding  to  his 

142 


CHRISTOPHER  MARLOWE 

love  of  antithesis,  wrote  :  '  As  the  poet  Lyco- 
phron  was  shot  to  death  by  a  certain  rival  of  his? 
so  Christopher  Marlowe  was  stabd  to  death  by 
a  bawdy  serving  man,  a  rival  of  his  in  his  lewde 
love.'  A  few  years  later  Vaughan,  in  his  Golden 
Grove  (1600),  gave  another  account,  according 
to  which  Marlowe  meant  to  stab  a  man  named 
Ingram,  with  whom  he  was  playing  at  tables, 
but  Ingram  avoided  the  thrust,  and,  drawing  his 
dagger,  stabbed  Marlowe  into  the  brain  through 
the  eye,  so  that  he  shortly  after  died.  This  is 
noted  as  the  execution  of  Divine  justice  upon 
Marlowe,  '  who  as  is  reported  about  14  yeres 
agoe  wrote  a  Booke  against  the  Trinitie.' 
Marlowe  had  written  no  such  book,  and  the 
man's  name  as  recorded  in  the  Church  register 
was  Archer,  not  Ingram. 

The  occurrence  in  which  Marlowe  lost  his  life 
has  been  described  by  some  recent  writers  as  a 
1  drunken  brawl.'  It  may  have  had  its  origin 
in  a  quarrel  or  brawl,  although  the  only  account 
of  the  event  which  is  entitled  to  respect  as  a 
historical  document — the  entry  in  the  parish 
register — records  nothing  but  violence  at  the 
hands  of  Archer.  Drunkenness  is  not  hinted  at 
as  the  origin  of  the  quarrel  in  any  one  of  the 
contemporary  accounts.  It  forms  no  part  of 
the  lurid  picture  which  we  owe  to  the  imagination 

143 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

of  the  Puritan  divine,  Thomas  Beard.  The 
statement  that  Marlowe  lived  an  irregular  and 
vicious  life  is  a  not  unnatural  conclusion  from 
the  manner  in  which  he  met  his  death.  But 
against  this  conclusion  should  be  set  the  purity 
of  his  writings ;  the  exemplary  character  of 
Chapman,  his  intimate  friend ;  and  his  asso- 
ciation with  men  like  Raleigh  and  Sir  Thomas 
Walsingham.  Edward  Blount,  the  publisher,  in 
dedicating  Hero  and  Leander  to  Sir  Thomas 
Walsingham,  writes  of  Marlowe  as  a  man  that 
had  been  dear  to  them.  The  book  is  dedicated  to 
Walsingham  in  these  words  :  '  Knowing  that 
in  his  lifetime  you  bestowed  many  kind  favours, 
entertaining  the  parts  of  reckoning  and  worth 
which  you  found  in  him  with  good  countenance 
and  liberal  affection.'  To  these  names  may  be 
added  that  of  Shakespeare. 

An  event  had  occurred  shortly  before  the  death 
of  Marlowe  which  made  a  certain  class  of  writers 
ready  to  accept  any  story  to  the  discredit  of 
Marlowe,  without  inquiry  as  to  its  truth,  and  to 
draw  from  the  unfortunate  circumstances  of  his 
death  the  most  unfavourable  inferences  as  to  his 
life  and  character. 

On  the  1 8th  of  May,  1593,  the  Privy  Council 
had  issued  '  a  warrant  to  Henry  Mander,  one  of 
the   messengers   of  Her  Majesties  Chamber,   to 

144 


CHRISTOPHER   MARLOWE 

repair  to  the  house  of  Mr.  Thomas  Walsingham, 
in  Kent,  or  to  anie  other  place  where  he  shall 
understand  Christopher  Marlow  to  be  remayning, 
and  by  virtue  hereof  to  apprehend  and  bring 
him  to  the  Court  in  his  companie,  and  in  case  of 
need  to  require  ayd.  .  .  .  Some  weeks  earlier 
(19th  March)  similar  proceedings  had  been  taken 
by  the  council  against  Richard  Cholmley  and 
Richard  Strange  :  the  former  is  known  to  have 
been  concerned  with  Marlowe  in  disseminating 
irreligious  doctrines  {Privy  Council  Reg.,  p.  288).'  * 
A  document  entitled  '  a  note,'  and  headed  as 
'  Contayninge  the  opinion  of  one  Christofer 
Marly  concernynge  his  damnable  opinions  and 
judgment  of  relygion  and  scorne  of  Gods  worde,' 
is  printed,  in  so  far  as  this  could  be  done  with 
propriety,  in  the  edition  of  Marlowe's  works 
edited  by  Mr.  Bullen  (Vol.  III.,  App.  III.).  The 
substance  of  the  charge  is  that  Marlowe  was  not 
only  an  atheist  himself,  '  but  almost  in  every 
company  he  commeth  persuadest  man  to 
Athiesme.'  It  is  alleged  '  that  one  Richard 
Cholmelei  hath  confessed  that  he  was  persuaded 
by  Marloes  reason  to  become  an  Athieste,'  and  a 
warrant  was  issued  from  the  Star  Chamber  for 
the  arrest  of  Cholmeley. 

The  charge  against  Marlowe  was  not  supported 

*  Diet.  Nat.  Biography,  tit.  '  Marlowe.' 
H5 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

by  sworn  testimony.  The  informant  by  whom 
the  note  was  signed  was  a  man  of  infamous 
character,  and  it  is  not  possible  to  avoid  sympa- 
thising with  Mr.  Bullen  when  he  writes  :  '  It  is 
a  comfort  to  know  that  the  ruffian  who  drew  up 
the  charges,  a  certain  "  Rychard  Bame,"  was 
hanged  at  Tyburn  on  6th  December  1594-' 
One  of  the  charges  in  the  note  signed  by  this 
malefactor  is  that  Marlowe,  having  learned  the 
art  of  coining  from  one  Poole,  a  prisoner  in 
Newgate,  '  ment  through  help  of  a  connynge 
stampe-maker,  to  coyne  french  crownes  pisto- 
lettes  and  english  shillinges.'  The  manifest 
absurdity  of  this  statement  and  the  infamous 
character  of  the  informant  would  justify  us  in 
discrediting  the  scandalous  part  of  the  charges 
in  the  note.  The  substance  of  the  accusation 
which  Marlowe  had  to  meet  was  that  he  was  an 
avowed  atheist,  of  an  aggressive  character.  The 
proceedings  were  cut  short  by  the  death  of 
Marlowe,  but  the  general  acceptance  of  the 
charge  of  atheism  by  the  writers  of  the  day  leaves 
no  doubt  that  it  was  well  founded. 

Marlowe's  views  on  religious  matters  had  been 
for  some  time  known  to  his  fellows.  Greene,  in 
his  Groatsivorth  of  JFit,  appeals  to  Marlowe  with 
evident  sincerity,  as  one  who,  with  himself,  had 
said,  '  like   the  foole  in  his   heart,  There  is  no 

146 


CHRISTOPHER  MARLOWE 

God,'  to  '  now  give  glorie  unto  his  greatnesse.' 
He  warns  him,  addressing  him  as  a  friend,  not 
to  follow  his  example  in  deferring  '  till  this  last 
point    of    extremitie  ;   for    little    knowest    thou 
how  in   the  end   thou  shalt  be  visited.'     These 
words  were  '  offensively  taken  '  by  Marlowe,  for 
profession  of  atheism  was  an  offence  punishable 
by  death.     In  the  year  1589  a  clergyman  named 
Kett  had  been  executed  for  heresy,  which  did 
not  merit  so  strong  a  name.    Chettle,  dissociating 
himself  from  Marlowe  probably  on  this  ground, 
simply  expresses   regret   that  he  had   been   the 
means  of  making  the  charge  public  {ante,  p.  103). 
A  charge   of  this   kind   made  against  one  so 
beloved  as  Marlowe  would  not  have  been  readily 
accepted  if  it  were  not  well  founded.     The  con- 
temporary notices  of  Marlowe's  fall  are  written 
more  in  sorrow  than  in  anger.     In  a  poem  in 
manuscript  written  in  1600,  signed  S.M.,  quoted 
by  Halli well- Phillips  in  his  Life  of  Shakespeare, 
the  writer  speaks  of  '  Kynde  Kit  Marloe.'     The 
'  biting    satirist '   Nash    in    the    epistle   to    the 
reader  prefixed  to  the  second  edition  of  Christes 
Teares  over  Jerusalem  writes  of  '  poore  deceased 
Kit  Marlowe.'    He  was  still  called  '  Kit '  when 
his  success  as  a  poet  seemed  to  call  for  a  more 
respectful  address.     So  thought  Heywood  when, 
in  his  Hier archie  of  the  Blessed,  (1635),  he  wrote 

H7 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

Mario  renowned  for  his  rare  art  and  wit 
Could  ne'er  attain  beyond  the  name  of  Kit, 
Although  his  Hero  and  Leander  did 
Merit  addition  rather. 

He  was  '  Kit '  to  Izaak  Walton  when,  years 
afterwards,  he  wrote  lovingly  of  a  ditty  fitted  for 
a  voice  like  the  note  of  a  nightingale  :  '  twas 
that  smooth  song,  which  was  made  by  Kit. 
Marlow  now  at  least  fifty  years  ago  ;  and  the 
Milk-maid's  mother  sung  an  answer  to  it,  which 
was  made  by  Walter  Raleigh  in  his  younger  days. 
They  were  old  fashioned  poetry,  but  choicely 
good.  I  think  much  better  than  the  strong  lines 
that  are  now  in  fashion  in  this  critical  age.' 

Marlowe  was  happy  in  his  buskin'd  Muse — 
Alas,  unhappy  in  his  life  and  end. 

Thus  in  sorrow  wrote  the  author  of  The  Returne 
from  Pernassus,  and  Peele,  shortly  after  the 
death  of  Marlowe,  thus  gave  expression  to  his 
admiration  and  regret  : 

Unhappy  in  thine  end 
Marley,  the  Muses'  darling,  for  thy  verse, 
Fit  to  write  passions  for  the  souls  below 
If  any  wretched  souls  in  passion  speak.* 

Greene's  dying  appeal  to  the  '  famous  gracer 
of  Tragedians  '  to  abandon  his  atheism  was 
prompted  by  affection  for  a  friend.     Drayton, 

•  Prologue  to  Honour  of  the  Garter,  1593. 
I48 


CHRISTOPHER  MARLOWE 

the    friend    of    Shakespeare,    bestowed    on    him 
worthy  praise  when  he  wrote — 

Marlowe,  bathed  in  the  Thespian  springs, 
Had  in  him  those  brave  translunary  things 
That  the  first  poets  had  ;   his  raptures  were 
All  air  and  fire,  which  made  his  verses  clear  ; 
For  that  fine  madness  still  he  did  retain 
Which  rightly  should  possess  a  poet's  brain. 

But  the  noblest  tribute  of  affectionate  regard 
to  the  memory  of  Marlowe  was  that  paid  by 
Shakespeare.  It  has  been  noted  that  he  was 
moved  by  the  tragedy  of  Spenser,  '  late  deceased 
in  beggary,'  to  depart  from  his  wont,  and  to 
introduce  into  one  of  his  plays  a  reference  to  an 
event  of  the  day.  The  pitiful  death  of  a  still 
nearer  friend,  his  master,  led  him  to  break 
silence,  and  he  wrote  these  words  : 

Dead  Shepherd,  now  I  find  thy  saw  of  might 
Who  ever  loved  that  loved  not  at  first  sight  ?  * 

The  line  quoted  by  Shakespeare  occurs  in 
Hero  and  Leander.  There  is  an  unmistakable 
note  of  affectionate  regret  in  these  words. 
'  Shepherd '  was  in  those  days  a  not  unusual 
word  to  denote  a  poet.  Cynthia's  Shepherds  in 
Colin  Clouts  were  the  poets  by  whom  Elizabeth 
was  surrounded.  But  there  was  a  special  signifi- 
cance in   the   word    '  Shepherd '    as    applied    by 

*  As  Ton  Like  It,  III.  v.  82. 
149 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

Shakespeare  to  Marlowe.  Dramatists  were  often 
known  among  their  friends  by  the  name  of  one 
of  their  characters,  and  we  know  that  Marlowe 
was  known  to  his  friends  as  Tamburlaine,  the 
Shepherd  King,  the  hero  of  the  drama  by  which 
he  was  best  known. 

Fragments  of  the  poetry  of  Marlowe,  and 
reminiscences  of  his  work,  are  to  be  found  here 
and  there  throughout  the  writings  of  Shake- 
speare. Sir  Hugh  Evans  trolled  snatches  from 
the  smooth  song  beloved  by  Izaak  Walton, 

''Pless  my  soul,  how  full  of  chollors  I  am, 
and  trempling  of  mind,'  says  Sir  Hugh  Evans, 
and  he  relieves  his  mind  by  singing 

To  shallow  rivers,  to  whose  falls 
Melodious  birds  sings  madrigals  ; 
There  will  we  make  our  peds  of  roses, 
And  a  thousand  fragrant  posies, 
To  shallow — 

Mercy  on  me  !  I  have  a  great  dispositions  to  cry 
[sings] 

Melodious  birds  sing  madrigals — 
When  as  I  sat  in  Pabylon — 
And  a  thousand  vagram  posies. 
To  shallow,  &c* 

When  Helen  was  presented  to  Doctor  Faustus 
by  Mephistophilcs,  in  obedience  to  his  demand,  he 
exclaims — 

•  Merry  JFivesf III.  i.  II. 

150 


CHRISTOPHER  MARLOWE 

Was  this  the  face  that  launched  a  thousand  ships 
And  burnt  the  topless  towers  of  Iliam  ? 

These  matchless  lines  were  present  to  the  mind  of 
Shakespeare  when  he  wrote  of  Helen 

Why,  she  is  a  pearl 
Whose  price  hath  launch'd  above  a  thousand  ships.* 

And  there  is  an  echo  of  the  music  when  the 
Countess's  call  for  Helena,  by  the  name  of  Helen, 
provokes  the  clown's  song — 

Was  this  fair  face  the  cause,  quoth  she, 
Why  the  Grecians  sacked  Troy  ?  f 

and  a  fainter  echo,  when  Richard,  beholding  his 
features  in  a  glass,  exclaims — 

Was  this  face  the  face 
That  every  day  under  his  household  roof 
Did  keep  ten  thousand  men  ?  was  this  the  face 
That,  like  the  sun,  did  make  beholders  wink  ?  J 

The  greatness  of  Marlowe's  influence  on  the 
work  and  character  of  Shakespeare  cannot  be 
measured  by  quotations  from  their  works,  or  by 
a  consideration  of  the  extent  to  which  they  may 
have  worked  in  collaboration.  There  is  no  more 
interesting  chapter  in  the  history  of  literature 
than  that  which  tells  of  the  work  done  by  Shake- 

*  Troilus  and  Cressida,  II.  ii.  81. 

t  All's  Well,  I.  in.  75. 

%  King  Richard  II.,  IV.  i.  281. 

151 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

spcarc  in  disciplcship  to  Marlowe.  To  what 
extent  they  worked  together  is  uncertain,  and  to 
discuss  the  question  would  transcend  the  purpose 
with  which  these  pages  have  been  written.  It 
may  be  profitably  studied  with  Sir  Sidney  Lee 
in  his  Life  of  Shakespeare  and  with  Dr.  Brandcs 
in  William  Shakespeare,  a  Critical  Study.  It  is 
sufficient  here  to  note  that  collaboration,  to  the 
extent  which  is  admitted  by  all  critics,  involves 
personal  relations  between  the  workers,  and  an 
intimacy  which  may  be  expected  to  exert  an 
influence  on  character  and  opinions  other  than 
those  which  are  merely  literary. 

The  abiding  influence  of  Marlowe  on  the 
work  of  Shakespeare,  and  his  strongest  claim  to 
our  gratitude,  is  due  to  his  discovery  that  the 
resources  of  the  English  language  were  equal  to 
the  creation  of  a  mighty  line,  an  unrhymed 
measure,  comparable  in  strength  and  beauty  to 
the  finest  metres  of  Greece  or  Rome,  and  adapted 
alike  to  the  uses  of  the  noblest  tragic  and  epic 
poetry. 

'  When  Christopher  Marlowe  came  up  to 
London  from  Cambridge,  a  boy  in  years,  a  man 
in  genius,  and  a  god  in  ambition,  he  found  the 
stage,  which  he  was  born  to  transfigure  and 
re-create  by  the  might  and  masterdom  of  his 
genius,  encumbered  with  a  litter  of  rude  rhyming 

152 


CHRISTOPHER  MARLOWE 

farces  and  tragedies  which  the  first  wave  of  his 
imperial  hand  swept  so  utterly  out  of  sight  and 
hearing  that  hardly  by  piecing  together  such 
fragments  of  that  buried  rubbish  as  it  is  now 
possible  to  unearth  can  we  rebuild  in  imagination 
so  much  of  the  rough  and  crumbling  wall  that 
fell  before  the  trumpet-blast  of  Tamburlaine, 
as  may  give  us  some  conception  of  the  rabble  of 
dynasty  of  rhymers  whom  he  overthrew — of  the 
citadel  of  dramatic  barbarism  which  was  stormed 
and  sacked  at  the  first  charge  of  the  young 
conqueror  who  came  to  lead  English  audiences 
and  to  deliver  English  poetry 

From  jigging  veins  of  rhyming  mother-wits 
And  such  conceits  as  clownage  keeps  in  pay,'* 

The  trumpet-blast  was  blown  in  the  prologue 
to  Tamburlaine  from  which  these  lines  are  taken. 
Of  this  play,  Swinburne  writes  :  '  It  is  the  first 
poem  ever  written  in  English  blank  verse,  as 
distinguished  from  mere  rhymeless  decasyllables  ; 
and  it  contains  one  of  the  noblest  passages, 
perhaps  indeed  the  noblest,  in  the  literature  of 
the  world  ever  written  by  one  of  the  greatest 
masters  of  poetry  in  loving  praise  of  the  glorious 
delights  and  sublime  submission  to  the  ever- 
lasting limits  of  his  art ' :  "j" 

*  A  Study  of  Shakespeare. 
f  Encyclopedia  Britannica. 

153 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

If  all  the  pens  that  ever  poets  held 
Had  fed  the  feeling  of  their  masters'  thoughts, 
And  every  sweetness  that  inspired  their  hearts, 
Their  minds,  and  muses  on  admired  themes  ; 
If  all  the  heavenly  quintessence  they  still 
From  their  immortal  flowers  of  poesy, 
Wherein,  as  in  a  mirror,  we  perceive 
The  highest  reaches  of  a  human  wit  ; 
If  these  had  made  one  poem's  period, 
And  all  combined  in  beauty's  worthiness, 
Yet  should  there  hover  in  their  restless  heads 
One  thought,  one  grace,  one  wonder,  at  the  least 
Which  into  words  no  virtue  can  digest.* 

Tamburlaine  has  many  and  obvious  faults.  In 
some  parts  it  descends  to  the  level  of  mere 
bombast. |  But  of  the  character  of  Tamburlaine, 
the  Shepherd  King,  we  may  say,  as  Goethe  said 
of  Doctor  Faustus,  '  How  grandly  it  is  all 
planned ! '  and  in  many  passages,  in  this  his 
earliest  drama,  we  find  Marlowe's  mighty  line  at 
its  best. 

It  was  no  part  of  Marlowe's  design  to  banish 
rhyme  from  lyrical  or  descriptive  poetry.    It  had 

•  First  part,  V.  i.  161. 

f  For  example,  in  Tamburlaine's  address  to  the  captured  Kings  : 
'  Holla,  ye  pampered  jades  of  Asia.' 
Shakespeare's  love  of  Marlowe  did  not  restrain  him  from  joining  in 
the  chorus  of  laughter  which  this  line  evoked,  for  Pistol  speaks  of 
pack-horses 

'  and  hollow  pampered  jades  of  Asia 
Which  cannot  go  but  thirty  mile  a-day.' 

2  Hen.  IV.y  II.  iv.  177. 

154 


CHRISTOPHER  MARLOWE 

no  place  in  the  measure  which  he  created  for 
tragedy  or  epic  poetry.  He  was  indeed  a  master 
of  rhyme,  as  unrivalled  as  of  blank  verse.  His 
Passionate  Pilgrim  contains  the  lyric  beloved  by 
Izaak  Walton  and  by  Sir  Hugh  Evans,  and  a 
fragment  of  descriptive  poetry  of  extraordinary 
beauty.  Of  these,  writes  one  who  has  brought  to 
perfection  the  charm  of  rhyme  :  '  One  of  the 
most  faultless  lyrics,  and  one  of  the  loveliest 
fragments  in  the  whole  range  of  descriptive  and 
fanciful  poetry  would  have  secured  a  place  for 
Marlowe  among  the  memorable  men  of  his  epoch, 
even  if  his  plays  had  perished  with  himself.  His 
Passionate  Pilgrim  remains  ever  since  unrivalled 
in  its  way — a  way  of  pure  fancy  and  radiant 
melody  without  break  or  lapse ' ;  and  of  Hero 
and  Leander  Swinburne  writes  :  '  It  is  doubtful 
whether  the  heroic  couplet  has  ever  been  more 
finely  handled.' 

Shakespeare,  in  discipleship  to  Marlowe,  aban- 
doned the  use  of  rhyming  couplets  which  is  to  be 
found  in  his  earlier  plays,  and  he  also  followed 
the  example  of  his  master  in  retaining  the  melody 
of  rhyme  in  his  lyrics,  of  which,  perhaps  the 
most  beautiful  are  those  in  his  latest  plays. 

When  Swinburne's  glorious  description  of  the 
advent  of  Marlowe  has  been  reduced  to  pedestrian 
prose,   it   tells   of   the   coming  into   the  life   of 

155 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

Shakespeare  of  a  personality  by  which  it  was 
profoundly  affected.  The  manner  in  which  his 
work  as  an  artist  was  affected  was  the  infusion 
into  it  of  the  spirit  of  the  classical  Renaissance, 
or  of  the  New  Learning,  as  it  was  more  accurately 
termed  in  its  relation  to  England.  The  outward 
and  visible  sign  of  the  infusion  of  this  new  spirit 
was  the  gradual  abandonment  by  Shakespeare 
of  rhyme  in  the  composition  of  his  plays.  The 
story  of  Shakespeare's  conversion  from  rhyme 
to  blank  verse  can  best  be  studied  in  the  glowing 
pages  of  Swinburne.*  Shakespeare  *  was  natu- 
rally addicted  to  rhyme.  .  .  .  But  in  his  very 
first  plays,  comic  or  tragic  or  historic,  we  can 
see  the  collision  and  conflict  of  the  two  influences  ; 
his  evil  angel  rhyme,  yielding  step  by  step  to  the 
strong  advance  of  that  better  genius  who  came 
to  lead  him  into  the  loftier  path  of  Marlowe.' 
Rhyme  in  King  Richard  11.  and  Romeo  and  Juliet, 
'  struggles  for  awhile  to  keep  its  footing,  but 
now  more  visibly  in  vain.  The  rhymed  scenes 
in  these  plays  are  too  plainly  the  survivals  of  a 
ruder  and  feebler  stage  of  work.  ...  In  two 
scenes  we  may  say  that  the  whole  heart  or  spirit 
of  Romeo  and  Juliet  is  summed  up  and  distilled 
into  perfect  and  pure  expression  ;  and  these  two 
are  written  in  blank  verse  of  equable  and  blamc- 

•  A  Study  of  Shakespeare. 

156 


CHRISTOPHER  MARLOWE 

less  melody.'  A  passage  in  Richard  II.  '  must  be 
regarded  as  the  last  hysterical  struggle  of  rhyme 
to  maintain  its  place  in  tragedy.' 

The  effect  of  the  New  Learning  upon  the  work 
of  Shakespeare,  under  the  influence  of  Marlowe, 
cannot  be  fully  appreciated  without  a  glance  at 
the  condition  of  the  vernacular  literature  of 
England  at  the  beginning  of  the  century  in 
which  he  was  born^^Jiallam  fixes  the  year  1400 
as  the  beginning  of  a  national  literature  written 
in  English,  a  language  that  was  then  growing 
into  literary  existence.  This  was  the  year  of  the 
death  of  Chaucer.  The  vernacular  literature 
which  showed  such  promise  in  Chaucer,  made  no 
progress  in  the  century  and  a  half  between  his 
death  and  the  accession  of  Elizabeth.  The  only 
book  written  in  England  in  those  years  which 
holds  a  first-class  position  in  literature,  More's 
Utopia,  was  written  in  Latin.  Then  had  come 
the  great  intellectual  movement  known  as  the 
Classical  Renaissance,  which  reached  England 
in  the  early  years  of  the  sixteenth  century. 
St.  Paul's  School  was  founded  by  Dean  Colet, 
and  William  Lily,  a  famous  grammarian,  who 
had  studied  Greek  and  Latin  in  Italy,  was 
appointed  High  Master  in  15 12.  The  grammar 
school  at  Stratford  held  a  high  position,  and  was 
one  of  the  first  in  which  Greek  was  taught,  and 

"57 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

by  the  teaching  of  that  school  Shakespeare  was 
made  ready  for  discipleship  to  Marlowe.  Dull 
and  long-forgotten  plays  after  the  manner  of 
Seneca  had  no  effect  on  the  development  of  the 
national  drama.  Ralph  Roister  Doister,  written 
in  1550,  may  be  taken  as  the  precursor  of  the 
Elizabethan  national  drama,  the  first  fruit  of 
the  Classical  Renaissance.  The  author,  Nicholas 
Udall,  was  headmaster  at  Eton,  and  a  famous 
classical  scholar.  The  play  is  founded  on  the 
Miles  Gloriosus  of  Plautus,  and  is  in  the  form  of 
a  Latin  comedy.  But  it  is  written  in  rhyming 
doggerel  verse.  Only  thirty-seven  years  inter- 
vened between  the  writing  of  this  play  and  the 
production  of  Tamburlaine.  The  greatness  of  the 
revolution  worked  by  the  genius  of  Marlowe  can 
best  be  realised  by  a  comparison  of  his  line  with 
the  jigging  vein  of  the  rhyming  mother  wit  which 
found  expression  in  Ralph  Roister  Doister. 

It  was  by  the  spirit  and  not  the  letter  of  the 
ancient  learning  that  Marlowe  was  inspired. 
The  difference  between  the  letter  and  the  spirit 
of  this  influence  is  illustrated  by  a  comparison  of 
the  work  of  Marlowe  with  the  efforts  of  a  school 
of  pedants  who  with  Gabriel  Harvey  and  William 
Webbe  *  were  engaged  in  a  fruitless  endeavour 
to  i  reform  '  English  versification  by  forcing  it 

•  A  Discourse  of  English  Poetrie  (1586). 

158 


CHRISTOPHER  {MARLOWE 

into  the  metres  of  Latin  poetry.  It  is  also  seen 
by  a  comparison  of  Shakespeare's  Roman  plays 
with  Jonson's.  Jonson's  plays  are  '  well 
laboured.'  His  characters  '  are  made  to  speak 
according  to  the  very  words  of  Tacitus  and 
Suetonius  ;  but  they  are  not  living  men ' ;  and 
we  know  from  Leonard  Digges  how  the  audience 
was  ravished  when  Shakespeare's  Caesar  would 
appear  on  the  stage.  Such  was  the  mighty  in- 
fluence which,  mainly  through  the  instrumen- 
tality of  Marlowe,  was  brought  to  bear  upon 
Shakespeare's  work  as  a  dramatist. 

Professor  Dowden,  in  writing  of  Shakespeare, 
devotes  himself  to  a  '  critical  study  of  his  mind 
and  art.'  It  is  in  regard  to  the  art  of  Shake- 
speare that  the  influence  of  Marlowe  has  been, 
for  the  most  part,  considered.  But  no  less  real 
was  his  influence  upon  the  mind  of  Shakespeare, 
upon  his  outlook  on  life,  upon  the  character  of 
the  man,  and  upon  his  office  as  teacher. 

While  Marlowe  was  engaged  in  his  great  work 
of  literary  pioneer  and  discoverer  he  had  under- 
taken a  mission  of  a  different  kind.  The  charge 
of  atheism  which  Marlowe  was  called  upon  to 
answer  was  never  tried,  or,  indeed,  exactly 
formulated.  The  word  was,  in  those  days, 
applied  to  deviations  from  orthodoxy  of  different 
degrees.     It  was  applied  to  the  freethinking  of 

159 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

Raleigh  and  his  literary  circle.  It  is  evident 
from  Greene's  friendly  expostulation  that  he 
used  the  term,  in  its  application  to  Marlowe, 
in  its  literal  sense.  It  is  impossible  to  avoid  the 
conclusion  that  Marlowe  towards  the  end  of  his 
life  had  become  the  apostle  of  a  kind  of  un- 
orthodoxy,  to  which  the  word  '  atheism  '  was 
regarded  as  applicable  by  friends  as  well  as  foes. 
Marlowe  had  an  influential  friend  and  patron 
in  Sir  Thomas  Walsingham,  who  is  said  to  have 
been  nearly  related  to  Elizabeth's  famous  minis- 
ter. Chapman  was  his  intimate  friend,  and,  as 
we  have  seen,  he  was  beloved  as  well  as  admired 
by  his  literary  brethren,  who  would  have  been 
moved  by  the  tragedy  of  his  death  to  clear  his 
memory  of  so  odious  a  charge,  if  it  had  been 
possible  so  to  do. 

Association  with  Marlowe  had  not  the  influence 
on  the  mind  of  Shakespeare  which  it  was  said, 
probably  with  truth,  to  have  exerted  on  weaker 
intellects.  Shakespeare  remained  unshaken  in 
his  hold  of  the  great  truths  of  religion,  and  three 
centuries  having  elapsed,  the  anniversary  of  his 
death  will  be  celebrated,  with  gratitude  for  his 
teaching,  in  services  of  the  church  of  which  he 
was  a  member. 

But  although  Shakespeare  emerged  unscathed 
from  the  fiery  trial  of  his  faith  to  which  intimate 

160 


CHRISTOPHER  MARLOWE 

association  with  one   like   Marlowe   must  have 
exposed  him,  the  influence  of  Marlowe   on  his 
religious  belief,  as  well  as  on  his  work  as  an  artist, 
is   clearly   discernible.      No    question   has    been 
oftener  asked  in  regard  to  Shakespeare  than  this  : 
What  was  his  creed  ?     It  is  a  question  that  can 
be  easily  answered  with  regard  to  other  great 
men  of  the  Elizabethan  age.     But  as  to  Shake- 
speare it  has  not  been  answered  yet ;   or,  rather, 
it  has  been  answered  so  differently  by  various 
earnest  students  of  his  work  as  to  lead  to  the  con- 
clusion that  the  problem  is  insoluble.     Charles 
Butler,  in  Historical  Memoirs  of  English  Catholics, 
claims  him  as  a  Roman  Catholic ;  and  a  French 
man  of  letters,  A.   J.   Rio,  in  his  Shakespeare, 
arrives  without  doubt  at  the  same  conclusion. 
He  has  been  described  as  an  atheist,  and  as  a 
deist,  and  Charles  Wordsworth,  Bishop  of  St. 
Andrews,  claims  him  as  a  faithful  son  of  the 
English  Church  of  the  Reformation. 

Many  of  us  in  our  passage  through  life  have 
come  across  a  young  man  of  exceptionally 
brilliant  intellect,  who,  under  the  influence  of  a 
friend  of  a  masterful  personality,  was  led  to 
abandon  for  agnosticism  the  religion  in  which 
he  was  brought  up.  After  a  time  such  a  one 
'  like  him  who  travels  '  may  return  again.  But 
he  returns  a  different  man.     Should  he  become 

161 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

a  divine,  his  theological  teaching  will  be  cha- 
racterised by  a  spirit  of  tolerance,  and  by  an 
understanding  of  forms  of  belief  and  unbelief  to 
which  he  would  otherwise  have  been  a  stranger. 
If  he  should  become  a  dramatist  or  novelist, 
there  will  be  found  in  his  work  the  characteristics 
which  have  baffled  inquirers  after  the  creed  of 
Shakespeare  ;  a  firm  grasp  of  eternal  verities, 
with  an  indifference  to  the  forms  and  dogmas  of 
any  particular  Church. 

There  are  more  things  in  heaven  and  earth,  Horatio, 
Than  are  dreamt  of  in  our  philosophy.* 

With  words  like  these  he  may  close  a  dis- 
cussion on  religious  subjects,  relegating,  with 
Milton,  reasoning  high 

Of  providence,  foreknowledge,  will  and  fate, 
Fixed  fate,  free  will,  foreknowledge  absolute 

to  spirits  of  another  sort,  in  another  place. 

A  firm  religious  faith  is  consistent  in  a  man  like 
Shakespeare,  with  easy-going  toleration,  and 
even  with  occasional  indulgence  in  an  unseemly 
jest.  Some  such  thought  was  present  to  his 
mind  when  he  put  these  words  into  the  mouth 
of  Don  Pedro : 

•  Hamlet,  I.  v.  167.  The  '  our  '  of  the  Folio  has  been  need- 
lessly altered  to  '  your.'  Hamlet  and  Horatio  had  been  fellow 
btudents  in  Wittenberg. 

l62 


CHRISTOPHER  MARLOWE 

The  man  doth  fear  God,  howsoever  it  seems  not  in 
him  by  some  large  jests  he  will  make.* 

Large  jests  were  in  vogue  in  Shakespeare's  day, 
and  even  his  Beatrice  indulged  in  a  kind  of 
pleasantry  that  has  been  long  since  banished 
from  the  servants'  hall.  But  there  is  no  irrever- 
ence in  Shakespeare's  jests.  He  never  calls  evil 
good,  or  good,  evil.  He  did  not  love  a  Puritan, 
and  he  had  no  taste  for  frequent  churchgoing. 
'  An  honest,  willing,  kind  fellow,'  says  Mistress 
Quickly  of  Rugby,  '  as  ever  servant  shall  come 
in  house  withal,  and,  I  warrant  you,  no  tell- 
tale nor  no  breed-bate  ;  his  worst  fault  is  that 
he  is  given  to  prayer  ;  he  is  something  peevish 
that  way  ;  but  nobody  but  has  his  fault  ;  but 
let  that  pass.'f  At  times,  under  special  provo- 
cation, he  might  be  of  the  mind  of  Sir  Andrew 
Aguecheek  : 

Mar.  Marry,  sir,  sometimes  he  is  a  kind  of  puritan. 

Sir  And.    O,  if  I  thought  that  Fid  beat  him  like  a  dog  ! 

Sir  To.  What,  for  being  a  puritan  ?  Thy  exquisite 
reason,  dear  knight  ? 

Sir  And.  I  have  no  exquisite  reason  for't,  but  I  have 
reason  good  enough.  | 

But  more  often  his  mood  would  be  that  of  the 
good-humoured  indifference  underlying  the  cha- 

*  Much  Ado,  II.  iii.  204. 
f  Merry  Wives,  I.  iv.  10. 
%  Twelfth  Night,  II.  iii.  151. 


SHAKESPEARE    AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

racteristic  language  of  a  certain  clown  :  '  Young 
Charbon  the  puritan  and  old  Poysam  the  papist, 
hovvsome'er  their  hearts  arc  severed  in  religion, 
their  heads  are  both  one  ;  they  may  joul  horns 
together,  like  any  deer  i'  the  herd.'  * 

We  are  certain  that  he  received  with  '  gentle  ' 
courtesy  the  preacher  whose  entertainment  at 
New  Place  has  been  recorded.  If  another  such 
visit  had  been  paid  when  Shakespeare  was 
writing  Cymbriine,  we  can  understand  how  when 
the  worthy  man  departed  his  host  could  con- 
tain himself  no  longer,  and  relieved  his  feelings 
by  writing  some  things  of  which  Sir  Sidney  Lee 
says  :  l  Although  most  of  the  scenes  of  Cymbeline 
are  laid  in  Britain  in  the  first  century  before  the 
Christian  era,  there  is  no  pretence  of  historical 
vraisemblance.  With  an  almost  ludicrous  inap- 
propriateness  the  British  King's  courtiers  make 
merry  with  technical  terms  peculiar  to  Calvin- 
istic  theology,  like  "  grace  '  and  "  election." 
In  I.  i.  136-7  Imogen  is  described  as  "  past 
grace  "  in  the  theological  sense.  In  I.  ii.  30-31 
the  Second  Lord  remarks  :  "  If  it  be  a  sin  to 
make  a  true  election,  she  is  damned." 

A  report  regarding  Shakespeare  that  '  he  dyed 
a   papist '    reached    the    Rev.    Richard   Davies, 

•  All's  Well,  I.  iii.  55. 

f  Life  of  Shakespeare,  p.  424,  and  note  1 . 

164 


CHRISTOPHER  MARLOWE 

Rector  of  Sapperton,  who  inserted  it  in  some 
brief  notes  respecting  Shakespeare  which  are  in 
the  library  of  Corpus  Christi  College,  Oxford. 
Davies  died  in  1708,  and  the  report  probably  had 
its  origin  towards  the  end  of  the  seventeenth 
century.  Although  it  was  not  founded  in  fact, 
it  is  easy  to  understand  how  it  came  to  be  said  of 
Shakespeare  by  the  Puritans  among  whom  his 
lot  was  cast.  He  had  heard  in  his  youth  from 
old  people  of  the  beauty  of  the  old  services,  and 
the  sweet  singing  of  the  monks.  With  this  in 
his  mind,  when  he  thought  of  the  fair  proportions 
of  some  abbey  church,  dismantled  and  going  to 
ruin,  he  wrote  these  words  : 

That  time  of  year  thou  mayst  in  me  behold 
When  yellow  leaves,  or  none,  or  few,  do  hang 
Upon  those  boughs  which  shake  against  the  cold 
Bare  ruin'd  choirs,  where  late  the  sweet  birds  sang.* 

If  the  passages  in  his  writings  by  which  learned 
and  thoughtful  readers  have  been  led  to  con- 
clude that  he  was  a  Roman  Catholic  had  a 
counterpart  in  his  daily  converse  at  Stratford, 
his  Protestantism  would  certainly  have  been 
called  in  question  by  the  good  folk  of  that  town, 
and  the  story  would  go  abroad  that  he  was 
reconciled  to  the  old  faith  before  his  death. 

'  Bishop   Charles  Wordsworth,  in   his    Shake- 

*  Sonnet  lxxiii. 

165 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

speare's  Knowledge  and  Use  of  the  Bible  (fourth 
edition,  1892),  gives  a  long  list  of  passages  for 
which  Shakespeare  may  have  been  indebted  to 
the  Bible.  But  the  Bishop's  deductions  as  to 
the  strength  of  Shakespeare's  adult  piety  seem 
strained.  The  Rev.  Thomas  Carter's  Shake- 
speare and  Holy  Scripture  (1905)  is  open  to  the 
same  exceptions  as  the  Bishop's  volume,  but  no 
Shakespearean  student  will  fail  to  derive  profit 
from  examining  his  exhaustive  collection  of 
parallel  passages.'  *  It  may  be,  as  Sir  Sidney 
Lee  thinks,  that  Shakespeare's  '  scriptural  remi- 
niscences bear  trace  of  the  assimilative  or  recep- 
tive tendency  of  an  alert  youthful  mind,'  and  it 
may  be  a  mistake  '  to  urge  that  his  knowledge 
of  the  Bible  was  mainly  the  fruit  of  close  and 
continuous  application  in  adult  life.'  But  his 
knowledge  of  the  Bible,  however  acquired,  was 
a  fact,  and  in  it  he  found  a  safeguard  against  the 
missionary  efforts  of  Marlowe,  all  the  more 
dangerous  by  reason  of  the  admiration  and 
affection  with  which  he  was  regarded  by  his  friend 
and  disciple. 

An  interesting  feature  of  the  annual  celebra- 
tion at  Stratford  of  the  birthday  of  Shakespeare 
is  the  preaching  of  a  memorial  sermon  in  the 
parish  church.     In  one  of  these  the  late  Canon 

#  Life  of  Shakespeare,  p.  23,  note  2. 
166 


CHRISTOPHER  MARLOWE 

Ainger,  having  spoken  of  the  discipline  '  under 
which  he  grew  to  be  a  prophet  and  a  teacher  to 
his  kind,'  says  '  wherever  men  do  congregate, 
or  wherever  they  muse  in  solitude,  there  abides 
this  great  cause  of  thankfulness  to  Almighty  God 
that  the  greatest  name  in  our  literature  should 
be  also  our  wisest  and  profoundest  teacher.'  * 

Coleridge  expressed  his  confidence  '  that 
Shakespeare  was  a  writer  of  all  others  the  most 
calculated  to  make  his  readers  better  as  well  as 
wiser,'  f  and  Professor  Dowden  writes  :  '  Is 
Shakespeare  a  religious  poet  ?  An  answer 
has  been  given  to  this  question  by  Mr.  Walter 
Bagehot,  which  contains  the  essential  truth : 
"  If  this  world  is  not  all  evil,  he  who  has  under- 
stood and  painted  it  best,  must  probably  have 
some  good.  If  the  underlying  and  almighty 
essence  of  this  world  be  good,  then  it  is  likely 
that  the  writer  who  most  deeply  approached  to 
that  essence  will  be  himself  good.  There  is  a 
religion  of  weekdays  as  well  as  of  Sundays,  a 
religion  of  '  cakes  and  ale,'  as  well  as  of  pews 
and  altar  cloths.  This  England  lay  before 
Shakespeare  as  it  lies  before  us  all,  with  its  green 
fields,  and  its  long  hedgerows,  and  its  many 
trees,  and  its  great  towns,  and  its  endless  ham- 

*  Shakespeare  Sermons,  preached  in  the  Collegiate  Church  of  Strat- 
ford-on-Avon  (1900). 

f  Lecture  on  Shakespeare  and  Milton. 

167 


SHAKESPEARE   AND  HIS   FELLOWS 

lets,  and  its  motley  society,  and  its  long  history, 
and  its  bold  exploits,  and  its  gathering  power  ; 
and  he  saw  that  they  were  good.     To  him  per- 
haps more  than  to  anyone  else  has  it  been  given 
to   see   that   they  were   a  great   unity,   a  great 
religious  object  ;   that  if  you  could  only  descend 
to  the  inner  life,  to  the  deep  things,  to  the  secret 
principles  of  its  noble  vigour,  to  the  essence  of 
character  ...  we  might,  so  far  as  we  are  capable 
of  so  doing,  understand  the  nature  which  God 
has  made.     Let  us  then  think  of  him,  not  as  a 
teacher    of    dry    dogmas,    or    a    sayer   of    hard 

sayings,  but  as 

A  priest  to  us  all 
Of  the  wonder  and  bloom  of  the  world, 

a  teacher  of  the  hearts  of  men  and  women." 

From  Shakespeare's  fellowship  with  Marlowe 
we  learn  something  of  the  strength  and  sanity 
of  his  character,  and  also  of  his  constancy  in 
friendship.  He  was  ready  to  learn  from  Marlowe 
what  he  had  to  teach,  and  to  follow  him  where 
he  ought  to  tread,  but  no  further.  He  was  loyal 
to  the  memory  of  a  fallen  and  discredited  friend. 
Deaf  to  Chettle's  entreaty  that  he  would  drop  a 
tear  on  the  sable  hearse  of  Elizabeth,  he  was 
moved  to  depart  from  his  use  by  the  tragic  death 

•  Shakespeare,  his  Mind  and  Art,  quoting  from  Estimates  of  Some 
Englishmen  and  Scotchmen. 

1 68 


CHRISTOPHER  MARLOWE 

of  Marlowe,  as  he  was  by  the  circumstances  of  the 
last  days  of  Spenser  : 

Those  friends  thou  hast,  and  their  adoption  tried, 
Grapple  them  to  thy  soul  with  hoops  of  steel. 

Loyalty  such  as  Shakespeare's  to  his  fellows  and 
friends  is  a  sure  token  of  the  genuineness  of  the 
character  which  Spenser  was  the  first  to  discover 
in  Shakespeare. 


169 


FAMILY    AND    FRIENDS 

Towards  the  end  of  the  century  in  which 
Shakespeare  died  an  attempt  was  made  to 
collect  and  record  what  was  then  remembered 
of  the  facts  of  his  life.  Nicholas  Rowe,  Poet 
Laureate,  the  earliest  critical  editor  of  the  plays 
of  Shakespeare,  was  also  his  earliest  biographer, 
for  none  of  the  scanty  notes  of  former  writers 
deserve  the  name  of  biography.  Rowe  was  a 
man  of  note,  as  a  poet  and  as  a  dramatist. 
The  popularity  of  his  best-known  drama,  The 
Fair  Penitent,  is  attested  by  the  survival  from 
it  of  the  phrase  '  gallant  gay  Lothario,'  de- 
scriptive of  the  villain  of  the  piece.  Of  this 
play,  Dr.  Johnson  writes  :  '  There  is  scarcely 
any  work  of  any  poet  at  once  so  interesting  by 
the  fable,  and  so  delightful  in  the  language.' 
Rowc's  work  as  editor  was  of  considerable  value 
at  the  time,  but  his  edition  of  the  plays  which 
appeared  in  1709  was  before  long  superseded  by 
that  of  Pope  (1725)  and  by  the  far  superior  work 
of    Theobald,    '  the    Porson    of     Shakespearian 


criticism.'  * 


•  Essays  and  Studies  (Churton  Collins). 
I70 


FAMILY  AND   FRIENDS 

Rowe's  poems  and  plays  are  now  forgotten. 
But  he  has  a  claim  to  our  undying  gratitude, 
second  only  to  that  which  is  due  to  the  players 
to  whom  we  owe  the  Folio  of  1623.  It  is  founded 
on  the  pains  that  he  took,  by  careful  inquiries 
at  Stratford,  to  preserve  from  oblivion  such 
knowledge  of  Shakespeare's  life  as  had  then  sur- 
vived, and  on  the  discrimination  and  restraint 
with  which  he  made  use  of  the  material  which 
was  supplied  to  him. 

In  this  pious  labour  he  had  the  assistance  of 
the  famous  actor  Thomas  Betterton.  Born  about 
the  year  1635,  Betterton  in  1661  joined  a  com- 
pany of  players  formed  by  Sir  William  Davenant 
at  the  Lincoln's  Inn  Theatre.  He  was  thus 
brought  into  contact  with  one  who  was  closely 
connected  with  Shakespeare.  Shakespeare's 
intimacy  with  the  D'Avenant  family  has  been 
noted  in  an  earlier  chapter.  With  William  the 
connection  was  closest,  for  he  was  Shakespeare's 
godchild,  and  devoted  to  the  memory  of  his 
godfather.  Betterton  was  not  only  an  actor, 
but  a  dramatist,  many  of  whose  plays  were 
produced,  and  in  the  words  of  Pepys,  '  well 
liked.' 

Betterton  was  known  to  Rowe  not  only  as 
a  great  actor,  but  as  an  earnest  student  of 
Shakespeare.     '  No  man,'  he  writes,    '  is    better 

I71 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

acquainted  with  Shakespeare's  manner  of  expres- 
sion, and,  indeed,  he  has  studied  him  so  well, 
and  is  so  much  a  master  of  him,  that  whatever 
part  of  his  he  performs,  he  does  it  as  if  it  had 
been  written  on  purpose  for  him,  and  that  the 
author  had  exactly  conceived  it.' 

Betterton  was  the  first  to  make  a  serious 
attempt  to  collect  material  for  a  biography  of 
Shakespeare  :  '  his  veneration  for  the  memory 
of  Shakespeare  having  engaged  him  to  make  a 
journey  into  Warwickshire  on  purpose  to  gather 
up  what  remains  he  could  of  a  name  for  which 
he  had  so  great  a  veneration.' 

At  what  time  Betterton's  veneration  engaged 
him  to  journey  to  Stratford  we  do  not  know. 
No  time  is  more  probable  than  shortly  after  the 
death  of  Davenant  in  1668.  The  strong  per- 
sonal interest  in  Shakespeare  which  prompted 
this  undertaking  can  be  traced  back  to  this  date, 
when  Betterton  purchased  the  Chandos  portrait, 
which  had  been  in  the  possession  of  Davenant. 
In  his  later  years  Betterton  was  in  straitened 
circumstances  and  a  martyr  to  gout,  and  in 
those  days  a  pilgrimage  to  Stratford-on-Avon 
was  a  serious  undertaking.  Rowe,  when  he 
published  his  Life  in  1709,  made  use  of  the  infor- 
mation which  had  been  collected  by  Betterton, 
but  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  Betterton's 

172 


FAMILY  AND  FRIENDS 

visit  to  Stratford  was  made  in  contemplation  of 
Rowe's  work. 

Fifty-two  years  after  the  death  of  Shakespeare 
there  must  have  been  men  and  women  living  at 
Stratford  who  had  not  reached  the  extreme  limit 
of  life,  and  who  had  spoken  with  Shakespeare 
when  he  was  resident  at  Stratford  during  his 
later  years. 

Nothing  can  be  more  commonplace  than  the 
story  as  told  by  Rowe.  He  tells  us  of  the  birth 
of  Shakespeare  in  April,  1564.  *  His  family,  as 
appears  by  the  register  and  public  writings 
relating  to  that  town,  were  of  good  figure  and 
fashion  there,  and  are  mentioned  as  gentlemen. 
His  father,  who  was  a  considerable  dealer  in 
wool,  had  a  large  family,  ten  children  in  all,  and 
could  give  his  eldest  son  no  better  education 
than  one  to  fit  him  for  his  own  employment.' 
He  was  educated  for  some  time  at  a  free  school, 
'  but  the  narrowness  of  his  circumstances,  and 
the  want  of  his  assistance  at  home,  forced  his 
father  to  withdraw  him  from  thence.  .  .  .  Upon 
his  leaving  school  he  seems  to  have  given  entirely 
into  that  way  of  living  which  his  father  proposed 
to  him  ;  and  in  order  to  settle  in  the  world  after 
a  family  manner,  he  thought  fit  to  marry  while 
he  was  yet  very  young.  His  wife  was  the 
daughter  of  one  Hathaway,  said  to  have  been  a 

173 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

substantial  yeoman  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
Stratford.  In  this  kind  of  settlement  he  con- 
tinued for  some  time  till  an  extravagance  that 
he  was  guilty  of  forced  him  both  out  of  the 
country  and  that  way  of  living  which  he  had 
taken  up.' 

Rowe  tells  the  tale  of  the  stealing  of  the  deer 
of  Sir  Thomas  Lucy,  for  which  he  was  prose- 
cuted, as  he  thought  too  severely ;  of  Shake- 
speare's revenge  for  the  ill-usage  in  the  form  of 
a  ballad,  '  the  first  essay  of  his  poetry,'  then 
lost,  which  '  redoubled  the  prosecution  against 
him  to  that  degree  that  he  was  obliged  to  leave 
his  business  and  family  in  Warwickshire  for 
some  time,  and  shelter  himself  in  London.  .  .  . 
The  latter  part  of  his  life  was  spent,  as  all 
men  of  good  sense  will  wish  theirs  may  be,  in 
ease,  retirement,  and  the  conversation  of  his 
friends.  He  had  the  good  fortune  to  gather  an 
estate  equal  to  his  occasion,  and,  in  that  to  his 
wish,  and  is  said  to  have  spent  some  years  before 
his  death  at  his  native  Stratford.  His  pleasur- 
able wit  and  good  nature  engaged  him  in  the 
acquaintance,  and  entitled  him  to  the  friendship 
of  the  gentlemen  of  the  neighbourhood.' 

This  commonplace  record,  the  result  of  the 
inquiries  of  Betterton  and  Rowe,  may  be  taken 
as  representing  the  impression  made  on  the  good 


FAMILY  AND  FRIENDS 

folk  of  Stratford  by  the  life  of  Shakespeare,  in 
so  far  as  it  was  spent  among  them,  and  of  this 
record  no  part  is  more  commonplace  than  the 
reference  to  his  marriage.  His  early  marriage 
to  the  daughter  of  a  substantial  yeoman  is 
attributed  to  a  desire  to  settle  in  the  world  in  a 
family  manner,  in  the  way  of  living  which  his 
father  proposed  to  him  ;  that  is  to  say,  as  an 
assistant  in  his  business  as  a  considerable  dealer 
in  wool.  It  never  occurred  to  Betterton's 
informants,  or  to  the  seventeenth-century  col- 
lectors of  Stratford  gossip  and  scandal,  that 
there  was  anything  out  of  the  common,  or  worthy 
of  note,  about  the  circumstances  of  Shakespeare's 
marriage.  Not  a  hint  at  unhappy  relations 
between  husband  and  wife  can  be  found  in  the 
local  gossip  collected  by  Aubrey,  Ward,  Davies, 
Hall,  and  Oldys. 

With  the  revival  of  interest  in  the  facts  of 
Shakespeare's  life  came  the  searching  of  ancient 
records,  and  the  discovery  of  certain  facts  which, 
read  in  the  light  of  nineteenth-century  ideas, 
seemed  to  have  a  significance  that  had  not  been 
attached  to  them  by  the  sixteenth-century  folk 
among  whom  they  took  place.  On  Monday, 
the  28th  of  November,  1582,  Shakespeare 
obtained  at  the  Bishop's  Registry  at  Worcester 
a  licence  to  be  married  to  Anne  Hathaway,  after 

I7S 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

publication  of  banns.  In  what  church  the 
celebration  of  the  marriage  took  place  is  unknown. 
The  eldest  child  of  the  marriage,  Susanna,  was 
baptized  in  the  parish  church  of  Stratford  on 
the  26th  of  May,  1583. 

A  marriage  in  November,  followed  by  the 
birth  of  a  child  in  the  following  May,  if  these 
facts  were  to  occur  in  our  day,  would  naturally 
lead  to  the  conclusion  that  prenuptial  inter- 
course had  been  followed  by  a  forced  marriage, 
at  the  instance  of  the  wife's  relations,  and  this 
is  the  conclusion  from  which  most  biographers 
have  started  in  their  accounts  of  the  domestic 
life  of  Shakespeare. 

It  is  always  dangerous  to  draw  inferences 
from  facts  which  have  a  relation  to  conduct 
without  a  complete  knowledge  of  the  laws  and 
customs  of  the  period  at  which  they  took  place, 
and  this  peril  is  especially  imminent  when  the 
facts  and  inferences  are  conversant  with  the 
relations  between  the  sexes,  as  governed  by  the 
law  of  marriage,  and  the  ecclesiastical  and  social 
customs  which  had  grown  up  around  the  law, 
and  which  disappeared  when  the  law  ceased  to 
exist. 

Mr.  Charles  Elton  has  earned  the  gratitude  of 
all  who  seek  to  attain  to  a  real  knowledge  of  the 
life  and  character  of  Shakespeare  by  the  care 

176 


FAMILY  AND  FRIENDS 

with  which  he  has  investigated  the  circumstances 
of  his  marriage  in  the  light  of  contemporary 
customs  and  ecclesiastical  regulations. 

Mr.  Elton  had  rare  qualifications  for  the  task. 
A  fine  scholar,  and  a  lawyer  of  real  learning, 
especially  in  the  branches  of  law  which  are 
akin  to  history  and  archaeology,  he  would  have 
attained  to  a  high  position  in  his  profession  had 
not  his  accession  early  in  life  to  an  ample  estate 
made  it  possible  for  him  to  devote  his  powers  to 
historical  and  literary  research,  while  he  was  at 
the  same  time  engaged  in  such  practical  work 
as  the  discharge  of  his  duties  as  Member  of 
Parliament,  and  the  collection  and  cataloguing 
of  an  interesting  library.  As  the  result  we  have 
the  Origins  of  English  History,  and  William 
Shakespeare  His  Family  and  Friends,  published 
in  the  year  1904,  after  the  death  of  the  author, 
with  a  memoir  by  Andrew  Lang.  In  this  work, 
which  is  a  storehouse  of  information  indus- 
triously collected  from  all  quarters,  and  sifted 
with  critical  care,  he  thus  sums  up  the  result  of 
his  investigations  : 

6  We  may  say  at  once  that  there  is  no  reason 
to  suppose  that  Shakespeare  and  his  wife  had 
made  an  irregular  or  clandestine  marriage, 
though  they  appear  to  have  been  united  by  a 
civil  marriage  some  time  before  the  ceremony 

*77 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

was  performed  in  the  face  of  the  Church.  We 
should  distinguish  between  regular  and  irregular 
contracts.  A  contract  of  future  espousals  was 
regular,  but  it  did  not  amount  to  marriage, 
being  nothing  more  in  reality  than  a  mutual 
covenant  to  be  married  at  a  future  time.  A 
contract  of  present  espousals,  on  the  contrary, 
was  a  legal  marriage.   .  .   . 

1  The  congregation  was  frequently  warned 
that  such  civil  marriages  ought  to  be  contracted 
publicly,  and  before  several  witnesses.  If  these 
rules  were  broken  the  offenders  were  liable  to 
the  punishments  for  clandestine  marriage,  such  as 
fine,  imprisonment,  or  excommunication,  and 
the  victim  might  be  compelled  to  walk,  like  the 
Duchess  of  Gloucester,  in  a  white  sheet,  with 
bare  feet  and  a  taper  alight  : 

Methinks  I  should  not  thus  be  led  along, 
Mail'd  up  in  shame,  with  papers  on  my  back  ; 
And  follow'd  with  a  rabble  that  rejoice 
To  see  my  tears  and  hear  my  deep-fet  groans. 

The  civil  marriage  required  the  religious 
solemnity  to  give  the  parties  their  legal  status 
as  to  property,  but  otherwise  it  was  both  valid 
and  regular.  The  clandestine  marriage  was 
valid,  but  all  parties  could  be  punished  for  their 
offences  against  the  law.' 

This  is  an  accurate  statement  of  the-"  Canon 

178 


FAMILY  AND   FRIENDS 

Law  as  it  was  in  force  in  England  in  the  year 
1582.  But  it  leaves  unanswered  this  question  : 
If  Anne  Hathaway  had  become  the  lawful  wife 
of  William  Shakespeare  at  some  time  before  the 
month  of  November,  1582,  why  was  not  their 
marriage  solemnised  in  church,  after  publishing 
of  banns,  in  the  usual  way  ?  The  fact  that  the 
marriage  was  not  so  solemnised  has  led  writers 
who  approached  the  subject  with  nineteenth- 
century  prepossessions  (including  the  writer  of 
these  pages)  to  conclude  that  there  must  have 
been  something  clandestine  or  irregular  about 
this  civil  marriage,  although  it  was,  by  the  laws 
then  in  force,  valid  and  binding. 

Mr.  Elton  was  an  antiquary  as  well  as  a  lawyer, 
and  his  research  has  supplied  an  answer  to  the 
question,  which  he  puts  in  these  words  :  '  Why 
marriages  were  not  always  solemnised  in  church 
after  banns  published,  or  special  licence  obtained. 
.  .  .  The  answer  is  that  it  was  difficult  to 
get  married  [in  church]  especially  with  due 
publication  of  banns,  except  in  the  latter  half 
of  the  year,  between  Trinity  and  Advent.  The 
ancient  prohibitions  had  been  relaxed  by  the 
Council  of  Trent  ;  but  the  decrees  of  that 
assembly  were  not  accepted  in  England.  In  our 
own  country  the  ancient  rules  prevailed.  The 
banns    could   not    be   published,    nor   marriages 

179 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

solemnised,  although  they  might  certainly  be 
legally  contracted  during  any  of  the  periods  of 
prohibition,  unless,  indeed,  a  special  licence  were 
obtained.  The  periods  extended  from  Advent 
to  the  octave  of  the  Epiphany,  or  January 
the  13th  inclusive;  from  Septuagesima  to  the 
end  of  Easter  week  ;  and  from  the  first  Rogation 
day,  three  days  before  the  feast  of  the  Ascension, 
to  Trinity  Sunday,  inclusive.'  Attempts  were 
made  after  the  Reformation,  without  success, 
in  Parliament  and  in  Convocation  to  remove 
these  disabilities.  Ultimately  '  these  distinctions 
being  invented  only  at  first  as  a  fund  (among 
many  others)  for  dispensations  and  being  built 
upon  no  rational  foundation,  nor  upon  any  law 
of  the  Church  of  England,  have  vanished  of 
themselves.'* 

But    in    the   year    1582    they   were   in    force. 
Shakespeare  was  one  who  believed  that 

No  sweet  aspersion  shall  the  heavens  let  fall 
To  make  this  contract  grow, 

if  heed  be  not  taken  that 

All  sanctimonious  ceremonies  may 
With  full  and  holy  rite  be  minister'd. 

And  so  he  took  the  necessary  steps,  at  a  time 
when  the  law  of  his  Church  permitted,  to  have 

•  William  Shakespeare  His  Family  and  Friends. 

180 


FAMILY  AND  FRIENDS 

the  marriage  solemnised  in  Church,  after  due 
publishing  of  banns.*  But  neither  at  the  time 
of  his  marriage,  nor  when,  many  years  after- 
wards, he  put  these  words  into  the  mouth  of 
Prospero,  would  it  have  occurred  to  him  to  be  a 
necessary  condition  of  a  happy  married  life  that 
the  holy  rite  and  the  indissoluble  civil  contract 
should  have  taken  place  at  one  and  the  same 
time.  Indeed  this  would  not  have  been  possible 
in  the  case  of  a  marriage  contracted  during  any 
of  the  prohibited  periods.  There  is  a  principle 
of  our  jurisprudence,  not  founded  on  legal 
technicality,  but  the  result  of  the  garnered 
experience  of  centuries,  which  tells  us  that  the 
best  way  of  arriving  at  truth,  in  the  absence 
of  direct  testimony,  is  to  refer  events  to  a 
legal  origin,  when  it  is  possible  so  to  do,  and 
to  presume,  in  the  language  of  the  law,  omnia 
rite  esse  acta. 

Shakespeare  was  born  in  the  month  of  April, 
1564.  He  was  thus  about  eighteen  years  of  age 
at  the  time  of  his  marriage  in  1582.  Anne,  his 
widow,  died  on  the  8th  of  August,  1623,  at 
the  age  of  sixty-seven.  She  was  therefore 
twenty-six    years    of    age    at   the   time   of   the 


*  The  banns  were  to  be  published  once.  But  from  the  researches 
in  ancient  registers  of  Mr.  Elton  and  Mr.  Gray  {Shakespeare's 
Marriage,  etc.)  it  appears  that  a  licence  in  this  form  was  not  unusual. 

l8l 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

marriage.  After  about  eighteen  years  Shakespeare 
wrote  these  words  : 

Duke.  Let  still  the  woman  take 

An  elder  than  herself :   so  wears  she  to  him, 
So  sways  she  level  in  her  husband's  heart  : 
For  boy,  however  we  do  praise  ourselves, 
Our  fancies  are  more  giddy  and  unfirm. 
More  longing,  wavering,  sooner  lost  and  worn 
Than  women's  are. 

Vio.  I  think  it  well,  my  lord. 

Duke.     Then  let  thy  love  be  younger  than  thyself, 
Or  thy  affection  cannot  hold  the  bent.* 

When  Shakespeare  wrote  these  words  he  could 
look  back  on  eighteen  years  of  married  life,  and 
no  one  has  doubted  that  in  the  speech  of  Orsino, 
which  is  devoid  of  dramatic  significance,  we  have 
the  result  of  this  retrospection  :  Eighteen  years 
before,  a  boy  of  eighteen,  he  had  married  a  woman 
of  the  mature  age  of  twenty-six.  Then  followed 
a  few  years  of  married  life  at  Stratford,  and  the 
birth  of  three  children.  There  is  no  reason  why 
we  should  import  into  these  years  the  idea  of 
unhappiness  or  discord.  Shakespeare  left  his 
wife  and  family,  not  of  choice,  but  of  necessity. 
The  trouble  in  which  his  reckless  love  of  sport 
involved  him  is  not  suggestive  of  domestic 
trouble.     Then   followed   long   years   of   separa- 

•   Twelfth  Night,  II.  iv.  29. 
182 


FAMILY  AND  FRIENDS 

tion,  of  solitary  struggles  in  London  ;  it  may 
be  of  error  and  estrangement.  Looking  back 
on  these  years,  Shakespeare  may  well  have 
thought  that  it  would  have  been  better  for  his 
wife  had  she  taken  an  elder  than  herself,  for  so 
might  she  have  swayed  '  level  in  her  husband's 
heart,'  and  have  exerted  more  influence  on  his 
life  and  character.  But  his  thoughts  and  sympa- 
thies were  for  the  older  wife,  not  for  the  younger 
husband,  whose  giddy  and  infirm  fancies  brought 
on  her  trouble  and  disappointment. 

Aubrey's    statement    that    Shakespeare    was 
wont    to    go    to    his   country  once  a  year  was 
probably  not  true  of  the  earlier  years  of  his  stay 
in  London.     But  with  his  improving  fortunes 
his    thoughts    turned    towards    home,    and    the 
homing   instinct   that    was   part   of   his   nature 
asserted  itself.     When  Twelfth  Night  was  written 
the  tide  in  his  affairs  had  turned,  and  had  set  in 
the  direction  of  the  return  to  domestic  life  and 
permanent   reunion,    which   was    fully   consum- 
mated when  some  ten  years  later  he  came  to  live 
in    New    Place.     Towards    this    consummation, 
devoutly  wished,  his  efforts  during  many  years 
had     consistently     tended.      He     had     already 
obtained  from  the  Heralds'  College  a  grant  of 
arms  to  his  father,  by  virtue  of  which  he  came 
to  be  described  in  the  deed  conveying  to  him  a 

183 


SHAKESPEARE  AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

share  in  the  tithes  of  Stratford  as  '  of  Stratford- 
upon-Avon,  gentleman.'  He  had  in  1597,  in 
the  words  of  Sir  Sidney  Lee,  '  taken  openly  in 
his  own  person  a  more  effective  step  in  the  way 
of  rehabilitating  himself  and  his  family  in  the 
eyes  of  his  fellow-townsmen.'  On  the  4th  of  May 
he  purchased  the  largest  house  in  the  town, 
known  as  '  New  Place,'  and  at  the  time  when 
Twelfth  Night  was  produced  in  the  Hall  of  the 
Middle  Temple  he  must  have  been  in  treaty  for 
the  purchase  of  a  substantial  real  estate,  the 
conveyance  of  which  was  executed  shortly 
afterwards.  According  to  the  careful  estimate 
of  Sir  Sidney  Lee,  '  a  sum  approaching  150/. 
(equal  to  750/.  of  to-day)  would  be  the  poet's 
average  annual  revenue  before  1599.  Such  a 
sum  would  be  regarded  as  a  very  large  income 
in  a  country  town.'*  In  the  full  splendour  of 
his  fame  as  a  poet  and  successful  dramatist,  and 
in  the  receipt  of  an  ample  income,  at  an  age  at 
which  he  might  reasonably  have  looked  forward 
to  the  enjoyment  of  many  years  in  the  life  of 
London,  '  like  him  that  travels  he  returned 
again,'  to  spend  the  remaining  years  of  his  life 
in  a  dull  country  town,  for  no  other  reason  that 
can  be  assigned  except  that  it  was  his  native 
place   and   the  home   of  his  wife   and   children. 

•  Life  of  Shakespeare,  p.  300. 
184 


FAMILY  AND  FRIENDS 

One  would  have  thought  that  the  fact  that 
Shakespeare  was  not  kept  by  the  attractions  of 
life  in  London  from  visiting  once  in  every  year 
the  country  town  in  which  he  had  left  his  wife 
and  family,  and  that  when  he  had  made  an  ample 
fortune  he  came  home  to  end  his  life  in  their 
company,  in  the  house  which  he  had  made  ready 
for  them  some  years  before,  would  have  led  to 
the  conclusion  that  their  relations  were,  at  all 
events,  fairly  satisfactory.  But  against  all  this 
is  the  unforgettable  fact  that  he  left  his  wife 
his  second-best  bed. 

The  truth  is  that  Shakespeare,  when  making 
his  will,  failed  to  realise  that  he  was  writing,  not 
for  his  executors  and  legatees,  but  for  all  time. 
It  has  been  a  source  of  disappointment  and 
serious  concern  to  many  that  he  made  no  mention 
of  Drayton,  Ben  Jonson,  Fletcher,  or  other  of 
his  literary  friends,  and  that  his  will  contains 
no  mention  of  his  own  writings.  Memorial  rings 
might  have  been  bequeathed  to  them,  and  to  the 
"  incomparable  pair  "  to  whom  the  First  Folio  was 
dedicated,  who,  in  the  words  of  the  editors,  prose- 
cuted the  author  when  alive  with  so  much  favour. 
They  were  provided  for  some  fellow  players  and 
a  few  obscure  neighbours.  The  master  of  the 
Grammar  School  at  Stratford,  who  made  a 
transcript  of  the  will  in  1747  when  interest  began 

185 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

to  be  taken  in  the  subject,  was  sorely  dis- 
appointed when  he  read  it,  and  could  not  help 
observing  that  it  was  '  absolutely  void  of  the 
least  particle  of  that  spirit  which  animated  our 
great  poet.'  On  which  Mr.  Halliwell-Phillips 
pertinently  remarks,  '  It  might  be  thought 
from  this  impeachment  that  this  worthy  pre- 
ceptor expected  to  find  it  written  in  blank-verse,' 
adding,  '  The  preponderance  of  Shakespeare's 
domestic  over  his  literary  sympathies  is  strikingly 
exhibited  in  this  final  record.' 

Shakespeare's  will  might  well  be  left  to  rest 
in  the  obscurity  of  a  registry  were  it  not  for  the 
extravagant  ideas  to  which  this  very  common- 
place document  has  given  rise.  Not  only  did 
he  leave  his  wife  entirely  unprovided  for,  but  to 
this  injury  a  deliberate  insult  was  added  by  the 
introduction  of  an  interlineation  into  the  original 
draft  by  which  his  second-best  bed  was  given  to 
his  wife,  showing  that  this  trifling  and  insulting 
notice  of  her  existence  was  a  mere  afterthought. 

Mr.  Halliwell-Phillipps,  in  the  notes  to  his 
Outlines,  has  printed  the  will  in  a  convenient 
manner,  which  enables  the  reader  to  understand 
the  process  by  which  it  attained  its  ultimate 
form.  The  portions  of  the  print  included  in 
square  brackets  represent  erasures,  and  those 
in   italics,  interlineations.     The   erasures   are   of 

186 


FAMILY  AND  FRIENDS 

no  significance,  and  the  only  interlineations 
with  which  we  need  concern  ourselves  are  those 
which  relate  to  the  provision  for  the  wife  of  the 
testator. 

By  the  original  draft,  New  Place,  with  practi- 
cally the  whole  of  Shakespeare's  property  in  land, 
was  settled  on  his  eldest  daughter,  Susanna  Hall, 
for  her  life,  with  remainder  to  her  issue  male,  in 
strict    settlement.     In    the    draft,  the    gift    was 
without   qualification,   but   before   the  will  was 
executed   the   following  words  had   been   intro- 
duced by  interlineation,  immediately  after  the 
gift  to  Susanna  Hall  :    '  for  better  enabling  of 
her  to  performe  this  my  will  and  towardes  the 
performance  thereof.'     By  these  words,  the  sig- 
nificance of  which  has  been  overlooked,  Susanna 
was  constituted  a  trustee  of  the  property  which 
was  devised  to  her,  in  order  to  enable  her  to  per- 
form and  give  effect  to  what  the  testator  calls 
'  this    my    will.'       What    was    the    will    which 
Susanna  was  to  perform  by  means  of  her  owner- 
ship   of    New    Place  ?     It    was    not    anything 
expressed  on  the  face  of  the  will,  which  contains 
no  indication  of  any  trust  or  obligation  imposed 
on  her.       The  words   '  this  my  will,'   if  taken 
literally,  would  refer  to  something  contained  in 
the    document    in    which    they   occur.     Shake- 
speare's will  was  composed  neither  in  the  blank 

i87 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

verse  of  a  poet  nor  with  the  technical  exactness 
of  a  conveyancing  draftsman,  but  the  meaning  is 
quite  clear.  The  testator  must  be  taken  to  have 
meant  something  by  the  words  '  this  my  will,' 
and  if  they  are  to  be  given  any  significance 
they  must  be  taken  as  meaning  '  the  whole  of 
my  testamentary  disposition  now  declared.' 
Directions  given  to  his  daughter  by  word  of 
mouth  as  to  the  use  that  she  was  to  make  of  the 
property  given  to  her  by  the  will  would  be 
legally  binding,  if  she  accepted  the  gift,  and  the 
testator's  entire  disposition  might  fairly  be 
spoken  of  as  '  this  my  will.' 

From  what  was  done  before  and  after  the 
making  of  the  will  there  can  be  no  doubt  as  to 
the  nature  of  the  trust  that  was  imposed  on  the 
owner  of  New  Place  or  as  to  the  loyalty  with 
which  it  was  carried  into  effect.  For  some  reason 
or  other  Shakespeare  had  for  some  time  made  up 
his  mind  to  provide  for  his  wife  otherwise  than 
by  putting  her  into  the  possession  and  manage- 
ment of  property  of  any  kind.  When  he 
acquired  by  purchase  the  Blackfriars  estate  he 
was  at  pains  to  take  the  conveyance  in  such  a 
form  as  to  bar  his  wife's  title  to  dower.  We 
must  assume  that  there  was  some  good  reason 
why  Shakespeare  did  not  make  his  wife  the 
mistress  of  New  Place  for  her  life,  and  why  he 

1 88 


FAMILY  AND  FRIENDS 

did  not  put  in  writing  the  entire  of  his  testa- 
mentary disposition.  Mr.  Halliwell-Phillipps,  with 
the  sanity  by  which  his  speculations  are  charac- 
terised, suggests  an  explanation  which  is  accepted 
by  Mr.  Elton  and  in  substance  approved  by 
Sir  Sidney  Lee.  '  Perhaps  the  only  theory  that 
would  be  consistent  with  the  terms  of  the  will, 
and  with  the  deep  affection  which  she  is  tra- 
ditionally recorded  to  have  entertained  for  him 
to  the  end  of  his  life,  is  the  possibility  of  her 
having  been  afflicted  with  some  chronic  infir- 
mity of  a  nature  that  precluded  all  hope  of 
recovery.  In  such  a  case  to  relieve  her  from 
household  anxieties  and  select  a  comfortable 
apartment  at  New  Place,  where  she  would  be 
under  the  care  of  an  affectionate  daughter  and 
an  experienced  physician,  would  have  been  the 
wisest  and  kindest  measure  which  could  have 
been  adopted.'  *  Susanna  had  married  in  1607 
a  physician  of  great  local  eminence,  named  John 
Hall,  resident  in  Stratford.  He  was  a  gentleman 
by  birth,  bearing  two  talbots  on  his  crest. 
'  He  was  well  educated,  travelled  abroad,  and 
acquired  a  good  knowledge  of  French.'  f  A 
Master  of  Arts,  of  what  university  is  not  known, 
he  was  a  good  Latin  scholar.     In  1657  a  volume 

*  Outlines  of  the  Life  of  Shakespeare. 
t  Sir  Sidney  Lee  in  Diet.  Nat.  Biography. 

189 


SHAKESPEARE   AND  HIS   FELLOWS 

was  published  entitled  '  Select  Observations  on 
English  Bodies,  and  Cures  both  Empericall  and 
Historicall  performed  upon  very  eminent  persons 
in  desperate  diseases,  first  written  in  Latin  by 
Mr.    John   Hall,   physician,   living  at   Stratford- 
upon-Avon  in  Warwickshire,  where  he  was  very 
famous,  as  also  in  the  counties  adjacent.'      A 
second  edition  was  published  in  1679,  which  was 
reissued  in  1683.     The  confidence  placed  in  Hall 
and  in  his  wife,  of  whom  something  will  be  said 
hereafter,     was     fully    justified.     Shakespeare's 
widow  lived  with  them  at  New  Place  until  her 
death  in  1623.     Her  position,  living  under  these 
circumstances  in  a  house  of  which  she  had  been 
the  mistress,  was  a  trying  one,  both  to  her  and 
to  her  successor,  and  after  her  death  Mr.  Hall 
paid  a  tribute  to  the  memory  of  his  mother-in- 
law  in    a    copy  of    Latin    elegiacs   which    was 
inscribed  on  her  monument,  a  striking  testimony 
to   her   virtues   and   also   to   the   harmony  that 
reigned  in  New  Place. 

But  why  the  second-best  bed  ?  It  would  be 
contrary  to  all  received  ideas  of  the  relations  of 
Shakespeare  with  his  wife  to  suggest  that  he 
left  her  this  bed  because  she  wished  to  have  it. 
The  best  bed  was  in  the  guest  chamber,  the 
second  best  in  the  room  which  she  and  her  hus- 
band'occupied      If  Shakespeare  had  only  realised 

190 


FAMILY  AND  FRIENDS 

his  duty  to  posterity,  and,  after  the  residuary 
gift  to  his  son-in-law,  John  Hall,  and  his  daughter 
Susanna,  his  wife,  of  his  goods,  chattels,  and 
household  stuff,  had  by  interlineation  inserted 
the  words  '  except  the  bed  which  my  wife  and 
I  have  occupied  together,  which  is  to  be  her 
property,'  much  searching  of  heart  would  have 
been  saved,  and  justice  might  have  been  done 
to  the  affectionate  forethought  which  prompted 
Shakespeare,  when  he  read  over  the  first  draft 
of  his  will,  to  secure  to  his  wife,  as  a  matter  of 
right,  such  maintenance  as  he  thought  most 
suitable  to  her  condition,  and  also  to  gratify 
what  we  may  well  believe  to  have  been  a  wish 
expressed  by  her,  by  excepting  from  the  general 
bequest  of  household  stuff  one  article,  that 
known  in  the  family  as  the  second-best  bed. 

Nature  will  out,  even  in  an  epitaph,  and  the 
pilgrim  to  Stratford  in  search  of  stray  glimpses 
of  the  life  that  was  lived  in  New  Place  three 
centuries  ago  may  learn  something  of  the 
occupants  of  the  house  from  a  study  of  the 
inscriptions  on  their  monuments  in  the  parish 
church. 

The  '  Stratford  Monument '  was  a  public 
testimonial  to  an  eminent  fellow  townsman,  and 
nothing  of  a  personal  character  was  to  be  looked 
for  in  the  verses  inscribed  on  it.     In^the  Latin 

I9I 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

lines  at  the  head  of  the  inscription  Shakespeare 
is  compared,  with  a  disregard  of  quantity  par- 
donable in  the  case  of  a  proper  noun,  and  with 
still  less  regard  to  aptness,  to  Nestor  in  wisdom, 
to  Socrates  in  genius,  and  to  Virgil  in  art ;  by 
which  last  words  Ben  Jonson  is  absolved  from 
all  suspicion  of  complicity  in    the   composition. 
Halliwell-Phillipps   notes  the  absence  from   the 
verses  which  follow  of  any  allusion  to  personal 
character,  and  also  of  the  local  knowledge  which 
would  have  forbidden  the  author  to  describe  the 
subject  of  the  verse  as  lying  within  the  monu- 
ment.    The  whole  thing  was  probably  imported 
from    London,    where    the    bust    was    certainly 
executed    by    Gerard    Johnson,    or    Janssen,    a 
Dutch  sculptor,  or  tombmaker,  settled  in  South- 
ward    From    it,  the    pilgrim    turns    to    some 
homely  words  inscribed  on  a  stone  covering  the 
grave,   which,   according   to  an  early  tradition, 
'  were  ordered  to  be  cutt  by  Mr.  Shakespeare,' 
who  had  a  horror  of  his  bones  being  dug  up  and 
removed    from    the    church    to    the    adjoining 
charnel-house  to  make  room  for  the  reception,  in 
accordance  with  ancient  right,  of  another  tithe- 
owner.     With    the    reflection    that    Shakespeare 
was  a   man  of  like  passions  with  ourselves,  he 
passes  from  the  conventionality  of  the  monument 
and   tomb  to  memorials  of    domestic  affection, 

192 


FAMILY  AND  FRIENDS 

and  here  he  is  not  disappointed.  e  Mrs.  Hall,' 
Mr.  Elton  writes,  '  placed  a  strange  inscription 
over  her  mother's  grave  a  few  years  afterwards  : 
"  Here  lieth  interred  the  body  of  Anne,  wife  of 
William  Shakespeare,  who  departed  this  life  the 
6th  day  of  August,  1623,  being  of  the  age  of 
67  years." '  The  inscription  proceeds  with  six 
lines  of  Latin  verse,*  to  the  effect  that  the 
spirit  as  well  as  the  body  was  held  in  the 
sepulchre  : — 

*  "  Ubera  tu  mater,"  it  commences.  "  A  mother's 
bosom  thou  gavest,  and  milk,  and  life  ;  for  such 
bounty,  alas  !  can  I  only  render  stones  !  Rather 
would  I  pray  the  good  angel  to  roll  away  the 
stone  from  the  mouth  of  the  tomb,  that  thy 
spirit,  even  as  the  body  of  Christ,  should  go 
forth,"  and  the  hope  is  expressed  that  Christ 
may  quickly  come,  so  that  the  imprisoned  soul 
may  be  able  to  "  seek  the  stars."  After  noting 
that  *  the  mother's  care  for  the  infant  is  treated 
as  a  matter  of  high  importance,  but  nothing  is 
said  about  the  rest  of  her  life,'  Mr.  Elton  adds  : 
'  But  the  exclusive  reference  to  the  earliest  cares 


* 


Ubera  tu  mater,  tu  lac,  vitamque  dedisti 

Vae  mihi,  pro  tanto  munere  saxa  dabo  ? 

Quam  mallem,  amoueat  lapidem,  bonus  angelus  ore 

Exeat  ut,  Christi  corpus,  imago  tua 

Sed  nil  vota  valent,  venias  cito  Christe ;  resurget 

Clausa  licet  tumulo  mater  et  astra  petet. 

193 


SHAKESPEARE  AND  HIS   FELLOWS 

of  motherhood  may  very  well  point  to  a  subse- 
quent incapacity  from  later  duties  as  the  mother 
of  a  household.' 

In  these  words  the  memory  of  a  woman 
lovable  and  loving,  noted  rather  for  piety  than 
for  intellectual  gifts  or  strength  of  character,  is 
piously  embalmed.  And  if  she  were  physically 
infirm,  we  can  understand  the  thoughtful  care 
that  provided  for  her  maintenance  in  a  way  that 
would  not  involve  her  in  the  management  of 
property  or  the  duties  of  housekeeping. 

Of  such  a  woman  it  is  natural  that  tradition 
should  tell  us  little.  But  what  it  has  recorded 
is  in  accordance  with  the  testimony  of  her  monu- 
ment. A  man  named  Dowdall,  who  wrote  in  the 
year  1693,  visited  Stratford  Church.  He  read 
the  inscription  on  the  tombstone,  and  had  a  talk 
with  the  gossiping  clerk,  who  was  above  eighty 
years  old.  '  Not  one,'  he  writes,  '  for  fear  of 
the  curse  aforesaid,  dare  touch  his  gravestone, 
tho'  his  wife  and  daughters  did  earnestly  desire 
to  be  layd  in  the  same  grave  with  him/ 

It  is  at  least  possible  that  the  expression  of  a 
similar  affectionate  desire  to  be  associated  in 
memory  with  her  husband  may  have  prompted 
to  Shakespeare  the  addition  to  the  original  draft 
of  his  will  which  made  her  the  owner  of  the  bed 
which  they  had  occupied  together. 

194 


FAMILY  AND  FRIENDS 

To  such  a  woman,  affectionate  and  pious,  the 
wife  of  his  youth,  we  may  well  believe  that  Shake- 
speare, though  in  his 

Nature  reign'd 
All  frailties  that  besiege  all  kinds  of  blood, 

would,  like  one  who  travels,  return  again,  with 
real  love,  and  memories  of  happy  days  at 
Shottery  and  years  of  early  married  life. 

Anne  Hathaway,  the  daughter  of  a  yeoman, 
and  twenty-six  years  of  age,  was  not  the  wife 
that  we  should  have  chosen  for  Shakespeare 
with  an  expectation  that  she  would  sway  level 
in  her  husband's  heart.  But  she  was  Shake- 
speare's choice.  According  to  Jane  Austen,  it 
sometimes  happens  that  a  woman  is  handsomer 
at  twenty-nine  than  she  was  ten  years  before.  At 
twenty-seven  Anne  Elliott  had  '  every  beauty 
excepting  bloom.'  Anne  Hathaway  at  twenty- 
six  was  capable  of  fascinating  a  poetical  and 
impressionable  youth  of  eighteen.  It  is  at  all 
events  certain  that  she  retained  sufficient  attrac- 
tion to  induce  Shakespeare,  when  his  prospects 
improved,  to  visit  Stratford  every  autumn.  It 
is  true  that  he  did  not  bring  his  wife  and  family 
to  London,  and  live  with  them  in  suburban  com- 
fort and  respectability,  like  his  fellows  Heming 
and  Condell.     But  if  Halliwell-Phillipps'  specu- 

195  °* 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

lation  is  well  founded,  the  infirmity  which 
induced  Shakespeare  to  provide  for  his  wife 
by  imposing  on  his  daughter  a  trust  for  her 
maintenance  will  equally  explain  why  he 
considered  her  unfit  for  the  strenuous  life  of 
London. 

It  is  at  all  events  certain  that  Shakespeare  did 
return  to  Stratford  to  spend  with  his  wife  a  life 
that  might  reasonably  have  been  expected  to 
continue  for  many  years.  It  is  also  certain  that 
some  years  before  his  settlement  in  Stratford 
he  had  written  this  sonnet  : 

O,  never  say  that  I  was  false  of  heart, 
Though  absence  seem'd  my  flame  to  qualify. 
As  easy  might  I  from  myself  depart 
As  from  my  soul,  which  in  thy  breast  doth  lie  ; 
That  is  my  home  of  love  :  if  I  have  ranged, 
Like  him  that  travels  I  return  again, 
Just  to  the  time,  not  with  the  time  exchanged, 
So  that  myself  bring  water  for  my  stain. 
Never  believe,  though  in  my  nature  reign'd 
All  frailties  that  besiege  all  kinds  of  blood, 
That  it  could  so  preposterously  be  stain'd 
To  leave  for  nothing  all  thy  sum  of  good  ; 
For  nothing  this  wide  universe  I  call 
Save  thou,  my  rose  ;  in  it  thou  art  my  all. 

It  is  probably  an  accident  that  this  sonnet  (cix.) 
was  printed  by  Mr.  Thorpe  with  two  sonnets 
(ex.    and     cxi.)    which    have     been    generally 

196 


FAMILY  AND  FRIENDS 

accepted  as  autobiographical,  in.  the  sense  that 
they  express  ideas  and  feelings  present  to  the 
mind  of  the  writer  which  can  be  referred  to 
known  facts  in  his  experience.  Those  who  favour 
the  autobiographical  reading  of  the  sonnets  have 
taken  infinite  pains  to  discover  a  foundation  in 
the  experiences  of  the  writer  for  sonnets  relating 
to  a  rival  poet,  and  to  a  dark  and  sinful  woman, 
who  obtained,  for  a  time,  a  strange  influence  on 
the  poet's  life.  The  searchers  after  the  dark 
woman  would  be  the  first  to  allow  that  at  some 
time  of  Shakespeare's  life  he  was  the  victim  of 
'  all  frailties  that  besiege  all  kinds  of  blood,' 
and  they  cannot  deny  that  in  the  end  he  returned 
again  to  end  his  days  with  the  wife  of  his  youth. 
And  yet  I  do  not  find  that  any  one  of  these 
writers  has  attempted  to  support  the  auto- 
biographical theory  by  a  reference  to  Son- 
net cix. 

Susanna  Hall  survived  her  father,  her  mother, 
and  her  husband,  dying  at  the  age  of  sixty-six 
on  the  nth  of  July,  1649.  On  her  tombstone  in 
the  chancel  of  Stratford  Church  the  following 
lines  were  inscribed : 

Witty  above  her  sexe,  but  that's  not  all : 
Wise  to  salvation  was  good  Mistress  Hall ; 
Something  of  Shakespere  was  in  that,  but  this 
Wholly  of  Him  with  whom  she's  now  in  blisse. 

197 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

Then,  passenger,  hast  ne'er  a  teare 

To  weepe  with  her,  that  wept  with  all  ? 

That  wept,  yet  set  herself  to  chere 

Them  up  with  comforts  cordiall  ? 

Her  love  shall  live,  1;  :r  memory  spread, 

When  thou  hast  ne'er  a  tear  to  shed. 

Reading  these  simple  lines,  the  pilgrim  felt 
that  he  had  been  well  repaid  for  his  pains.  They 
bear  the  impress  of  truth,  and  owe  nothing  to 
the  partiality  of  a  husband's  love,  for  Hall  had 
died  in  the  year  1635.  They  tell  us  what  was 
thought  and  said  of  Shakespeare's  daughter 
Susanna  by  the  people  among  whom  she  had 
spent  her  life.  They  tell  us  that  thirty-three 
years  after  the  death  of  Shakespeare  it  was  said 
in  Stratford  that  Mistress  Hall  had  wits  above 
her  sex,  but  that  was  not  to  be  marvelled  at  in 
the  daughter  of  Shakespeare,  of  whom  they  were 
often  put  in  mind  when  they  spoke  to  her.  Then 
a  precisian  of  the  straiter  sect  would  say  that 
this  was  the  least  of  her  virtues,  and  would  tell 
of  her  Christlikc  charity,  how  she  would  weep 
with  those  that  wept.  Another  would  add  that 
Mistress  Hall  did  more  than  weep  with  the 
sorrowful  ;  that  while  she  wept  she  set  herself 
to  cheer  up  the  sufferer  with  '  comforts  cordiall,' 
not  of  words  only,  spoken  in  her  merry,  cheerful 
way  within  the  limits  of  becoming  mirth — some- 

198 


"*& 


FAMILY  AND  FRIENDS 

thing  of  Shakespeare  was  in  that — but  by  deeds 
of  mercy,  the  memory  of  which  would  long 
survive. 

To  such  a  daughter,  keen-witted,  and  Christ- 
like in  practical  charity,  a  fond  father  might  well 
give  the  name  '  Miranda.' 
^  JSir  Walter  Raleigh  writes  of  The  Tempest : 
'  The  thought  which  occurs  at  once  to  almost 
every  reader  of  the  play,  that  Prospero  resembles 
Shakespeare  himself,  can  hardly  have  been  absent 
from  the  mind  of  the  author.'  In  Shakespere, 
his  Mind  and  Art,  Professor  Dowden  has  given 
the  fullest  expression  to  a  reading  of  the  cha- 
racter of  Shakespeare  that  has  found  general 
acceptance.  '  It  is  not  chiefly,'  he  writes, 
'  because  Prospero  is  a  great  enchanter,  now 
about  to  break  his  magic  staff,  to  drown  his 
book  deeper  than  ever  plummet  sounded,  to 
dismiss  his  airy  spirits,  and  to  return  to  the 
practical  service  of  his  dukedom,  that  we  identify 
Prospero  in  some  measure  with  Shakespeare 
himself.  It  is  rather  because  of  the  temper  of 
Prospero,  the  grave  harmony  of  his  character, 
his  self-mastery,  his  calm  validity  of  will,  his 
sensitiveness  to  wrong,  his  unfaltering  justice, 
and  with  these  a  certain  abandonment,  a  remote- 
ness from  the  common  joys  and  sorrows  of  the 
world,    are    characteristics    of    Shakespeare    as 

199 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

discovered  to  us  in  all  his  latest  plays.'  '  It  is 
Shakespeare's  own  nature  which  overflows  into 
Prospero,'  writes  Dr.  Brandes,  and  from  that 
source  may  have  flowed  the  love  of  daughter 
and  the  love  of  books  which  are  the  most  striking 
characteristics  of  Prospero,  as  revealed  to  us  by 
Shakespeare.  :£==* 

Of  Shakespeare's  younger  daughter,  Judith, 
we  know  little.  About  two  months  before  the 
death  of  her  father  she  married  Thomas  Quiney, 
whose  father,  Richard  Quiney,  had  been  High 
Bailiff  of  Stratford.  Quiney,  who  was  a  vintner, 
had  received  a  good  education.  This  is  shown 
by  his  use  of  a  French  motto  in  one  of  his 
accounts,  the  penmanship  of  which  is  par- 
ticularly good.  He  was  unsuccessful  in  business, 
and  the  marriage  was  an  unfortunate  one. 
Judith  died  in  Stratford  in  the  year  1662,  at  the 
age  of  seventy-six.  Her  husband,  in  education 
and  position,  was  far  inferior  to  Hall,  and  it  is 
no  violent  assumption  to  conclude  that  there 
was  a  corresponding  difference  between  Susanna 
and  Judith,  and  that  a  truthful  epitaph  might 
have  recorded  that,  as  Susanna  had  inherited 
the  wits  of  her  father,  the  virtues  of  her  mother 
had  descended  on  Judith. 

'  In  the  latest  plays  the  country  life  of  Strat- 
ford reasserts  itself.     After  all  our  martial  and 

200 


FAMILY  AND  FRIENDS 

political  adventures,  our  long-drawn  passions  and 
deadly  sorrows,  we  are  back  in  Perdita's  flower- 
garden,  and  join  in  the  festivities  of  a  sheep- 
shearing.  A  new  type  of  character  meets  us  in 
these  plays  :  a  girl  innocent,  frank,  dutiful,  and 
wise,  cherished  and  watched  over  by  her  devoted 
father,  or  restored  to  him  after  long  separation. 
It  is  impossible  to  escape  the  thought  that  we  are 
indebted  to  Judith  Shakespeare  for  something 
of  the  beauty  and  simplicity  which  appear  in 
[Miranda  and]  Perdita,  and  in  the  earlier  sketch 
of  Marina.  In  his  will  Shakespeare  bequeathes 
to  Judith  a  "  broad  silver-gilt  bowl " — doubtless 
the  bride-cup  that  was  used  at  her  wedding. 
There  were  many  other  girls  within  reach  of  his 
observation,  but  (such  are  the  limitations  of 
humanity)  there  were  few  so  likely  as  his  own 
daughter  to  exercise  him  in  disinterested  sym- 
pathy and  insight,  or  to  touch  him  with  a  sense 
of  the  pathos  of  youth  '  {Shakespeare,  Raleigh). 

This  delightful  picture  of  Judith  Shakespeare 
has  no  monumental  inscription  to  vouch  for  its 
truthfulness.  It  has  a  deeper  and  a  sounder 
foundation,  an  appreciation  of  the  nature  of 
Shakespeare,  and  an  understanding  of  the  kind 
of  domestic  life  for  the  sake  of  which  he  was 
ready  to  abandon  the  intellectual  society  and  the 
fuller  life  of  London.     It  has  a  relation  to  fact 

201 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

widely  different  from  the  gloomy  fancies  about 
the  family  life  of  Shakespeare  with  which  we  are 
familiar,  for  it  is  at  all  events  consistent  with 
fact. 

The  most  distressing  of  these  nightmares 
results  from  the  inability  of  certain  critics 
inwardly  to  digest  a  speech  into  which  Shake- 
speare, irrelevantly  after  his  manner,  intro- 
duced certain  ideas  borrowed  from  a  book  that 
lay  open  before  him  as  he  wrote. 

The  book  was  a  copy  of  Florio's  English 
version  of  Montaigne's  Essayes.  Whether  it 
was  the  very  copy  which  may  be  seen  in  the 
British  Museum  is  an  interesting  inquiry,  but  it 
is  nothing  to  our  present  purpose. 

Gonzalo.       V     the     commonwealth    I     would    by 
contraries 
Execute  all  things  ;    for  no  kind  of  traffic 
Would  I  admit ;   no  name  of  magistrate  ; 
Letters  should  not  be  known  ;  riches,  poverty, 
And  use  of  service,  none  ;  contract,  succession, 
Bourn,  bound  of  land,  tilth,  vineyard  none  ; 
No  use  of  metal,  corn,  or  wine,  or  oil  ; 
No  occupation  ;  all  men  idle,  all  ; 
And  women  too,  but  innocent  and  pure  ; 
No  sovereignty.* 

In  these  words  a  passage  is  reproduced  with 
literal  accuracy  from  Montaigne. 

•  Tempest,  II.  i.  150. 
202 


FAMILY  AND  FRIENDS 

In  another  page  of  the  same  volume  he  had 
read  these  words  : 

1  Few  men  have  wedded  their  sweet  hartes, 
their  paramours  or  Mistrises,  but  have  come 
home  by  weeping  crosse,  and  erelong  repented 
their  bargain.  And  even  in  the  other  world 
what  an  unquiet  life  leads  Jupiter  with  his  wife, 
whom  before  he  had  secretly  knowen  and 
lovingly  enjoyed  ?  ' 

Shakespeare  was  a  dramatist,  ever  ready  to 
adapt  to  his  purpose  whatever  he  might  have 
seen  or  read  which  was  capable  of  artistic  treat- 
ment. There  is  no  particular  reason  apparent 
why  he  should  have  worked  Montaigne's  descrip- 
tion of  an  ideal  commonwealth  into  a  speech  put 
into  the  mouth  of  Gonzalo.  But  having  done 
so,  it  is  natural  that  the  passage  should  be  repro- 
duced with  the  faithful  and  prosaic  accuracy  that 
was  suitable  to  his  character. 

For  some  reason,  equally  inscrutable,  he  puts 
into  the  mouth  of  Prospero  Montaigne's  warning 
against  the  destruction  of  happiness  in  married 
life  consequent  on  marrying  a  paramour  or 
mistress  ;  attracted,  possibly,  by  the  quaintness 
of  the  appeal  to  Jupiter's  experience  of  the  un- 
quiet life  which  he  led  with  his  wife.  Shake- 
speare was  not  a  copyist.  If  such  a  warning 
were   to   be  given   by   Prospero,    Shakespeare's 

203 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

dramatic  instinct  taught  him  that  it  should  be 
expressed  with  poetic  fervour,  inspired  by  the 
love  of  a  precious  daughter,  which  was  part  of 
the  nature  which  he  had  poured  into  Prospero. 
And  so  he  wrote 

Take  my  daughter  :    but 
If  thou  dost  break  her  virgin-knot  before 
All  sanctimonious  ceremonies  may 
With  full  and  holy  rite  be  minister'd, 
No  sweet  aspersion  shall  the  heavens  let  fall 
To  make  this  contract  grow  ;    but  barren  hate, 
Sour-eyed  disdain  and  discord  shall  bestrew 
The  union  of  your  bed  with  weeds  so  loathly 
That  you  shall  hate  it  both  ;   therefore  take  heed 
As  Hymens  lamps  shall  light  you.* 

Two  thoughts  are  involved  in  this  address. 
Lovers  should  take  heed  as  Hymen's  lamps  shall 
light  them,  for  the  consequences  of  anticipating 
marriage  will  be  fatal  to  the  happiness  of  their 
married  life.  And,  moreover  if  they  would 
have  the  blessing  of  heaven  upon  the  marriage 
contract,  the  blessing  should  be  invoked  by  all 
sanctimonious  ceremonies,  with  full  and  holy 
rite.  These  ideas  which  arc  easily  separable  in 
prose,  arc  somewhat  involved,  in  a  manner 
characteristic  of  Shakespeare,  and  Prospero  spoke 
of  the  contract  and  of  the  holy  rite  as  one  and 

•  Tempest,  IV.  i.  15. 
204 


FAMILY  AND  FRIENDS 

the  same  thing.  But  the  offence  to  which  a 
terrible  punishment  is  attached  in  these  words 

barren  hate, 
Sour-eyed  disdain  and  discord  shall  bestrew 
The  union  of  your  bed  with  weeds  so  loathly 
That  you  shall  hate  it  both, 

is  not  that  of  separating  the  civil  contract  from 
the  holy  rite,  but  that  of  breaking  the  virgin 
knot  heedless  of  Hymen's  lamps  :  in  plain  prose, 
before  marriage.  To  those  who  are  obsessed 
with  the  idea  that  Shakespeare,  when  he  wrote 
of  barren  hate,  sour-eyed  disdain,  discord,  and 
loathing,  had  in  his  mind  the  torture  to  which 
he  had  yielded  himself  up  when  he  returned  to 
Stratford,  it  would  be  idle  to  prescribe  a  remedy 
in  the  form  of  reasoning,  even  if  argumentation 
or  controversy  could  be  admitted  to  pages  which 
deal  simply  with  ascertained  fact.  But  those 
who  suffer  under  this  affliction — and  they  are, 
happily,  a  decreasing  number — may  find  some 
relief  in  reading  what  has  been  written  by  some 
whose  minds  were  unclouded  by  theories  and 
prepossessions  which  have  no  foundation  in 
fact. 

'  No  writer  of  any  time — and  his  own  time  was 
certainly  not  one  of  special  respect  for  marriage 
— has  represented  it  so  constantly  as  not  only 
"  good,"  but  "  delightful,"  to  retort  La  Roche- 

205 


SHAKESPEARE    AND  HIS   FELLOWS 

foucauld's  injurious  distinction.  Except  Goneril 
and  Regan,  who  designedly  are  monsters,  there 
is  hardly  a  bad  wife  in  Shakespeare — there  are 
no  unloving,  few  unloved,  ones.  It  is  not 
merely  in  his  objects  of  courtship — Juliet,  Viola, 
Rosalind,  Portia,  Miranda — that  he  is  a  woman- 
worshipper.  Even  Gertrude  —  a  questionable 
widow — seems  not  to  have  been  an  unsatis- 
factory wife  to  Hamlet  the  elder,  as  she  certainly 
was  not  to  his  brother.  One  might  hesitate  a 
little  as  to  Lady  Macbeth  as  a  hostess — certainly 
not  as  a  wife.  From  the  novice  sketch  of 
Adriana  in  the  Errors  to  the  unmatchable  triumph 
of  Imogen,  from  the  buxom  honesty  of  Mistress 
Ford  to  the  wronged  innocence  and  queenly 
grace  of  Hermione,  Shakespeare  has  nothing  but 
the  beau  role  for  wives.  And  if  in  this  invariable 
gynasolatry  he  was  actuated  by  disappointment 
in  his  own  wife  or  repentance  for  his  own  mar- 
riage, he  must  either  have  been  the  best  good 
Christian,  or  the  most  pigeon-livered  philosopher, 
or  the  most  cryptic  and  incomprehensible  ironist 
that  the  world  has  ever  seen.  Indeed,  he  might 
be  all  these  things,  and  feel  nothing  of  the 
kind.'  * 

1  In  the  plays  of  Shakespeare's  closing  years 

*  Cambridge  History  of  English  Literature,  Vol.  V.,  p.  168  (George 

Saintsbury). 

206 


FAMILY  AND  FRIENDS 

there  is  a  pervading  sense  of  quiet  and  happi- 
ness,' Sir  Walter  Raleigh  writes,  '  which  seems 
to  bear  witness  to  a  change  in  the  mind  of  their 
author.  .  .  .  An  all-embracing  tolerance  and 
kindliness  inspires  these  last  plays.' 

And  of  the  last  of  his  plays  Professor  Dowden 
writes  :  '  The  sympathetic  reader  can  discern 
unmistakably  a  certain  abandoning  of  the  com- 
mon joy  of  the  world,  a  certain  remoteness  from 
the  usual  pleasures  and  sadness  of  life,  and  at 
the  same  time,  all  the  more,  this  tender  bending 
over  those  who  are  like  children  still  absorbed 
in  their  individual  joys  and  sorrows.' 

By  the  homely  words  '  ease  and  retirement,' 
the  tradition  of  Stratford,  as  recorded  by  Rowe, 
expressed  the  idea  that  critics  have  extracted 
from  the  plays  written  in  the  later  years  of 
Shakespeare's  life 

Me,  poor  fool,  my  library 
Was  dukedom  large  enough. 

Shakespeare  wrote  these  touching  words  as 
one  who  was  bidding  farewell  to  public  life,  in 
which  he  had  taken  an  active  and  successful 
part,  and  by  none  other  could  they  have  been 
written.  In  them  Shakespeare,  through  Pros- 
pero,  reveals  to  us  his  inner  self  ;  his  love  of 
his    books   and   of   the   library   by   the   narrow 

207 


SHAKESPEARE  AND  HIS   FELLOWS 

limits  of  which  his  dukedom  was  henceforth 
to  be  bounded.  And  we  find  Prospero-Shake- 
speare  recurring  to  the  thought  of  his  library 
when  he  tells  Miranda  how  a  noble  Neapolitan, 
Gonzalo,  out  of  his  charity,  supplied  them  with 
'  rich  garments,  linens,  stuffs,  and  necessaries,' 
adding — 

So,  of  his  gentleness, 
Knowing  I  loved  my  books,  he  furnished  me 
From  mine  own  library  with  volumes  that 
I  prize  above  my  dukedom.* 

It  is  in  modern  times,  according  to  the  New 
English  Dictionary,  that  the  word  '  library  '  has 
come  to  denote  a  room  above  a  certain  level  of 
size  and  pretensions.  To  Shakespeare  the  word 
meant  no  more  than  a  collection  or  '  study  ' 
of  books  in  some  unpretending  room,  or  closet, 
in  New  Place.  It  is  not  to  be  believed  that 
Shakespeare,  when  at  the  age  of  forty-seven  he 
passed,  in  the  words  of  Professor  Dowden, 
'  from  his  service  as  artist  to  his  service  as 
English  gentleman,'  and  from  companionship 
with  the  world  of  letters  to  the  society  of  a 
country  town,  did  not  better  for  his  life  provide 
than  to  divorce  it  from  fellowship,  through  his 
books,  with  the  mighty  minds  of  old. 

•  Tempest,  I.  ii.  162. 
208 


FAMILY  AND  FRIENDS 

My  days  among  the  Dead  are  past ; 

Around  me  I  behold 

Where'er  these  casual  eyes  are  cast, 

The  mighty  minds  of  old  ; 

My  never  failing  friends  are  they 

With  whom  I  converse  day  by  day. 

It  would,  be  a  grave  omission  from  pages  in 
which  it  is  sought  to  learn  something  from  the 
fellowship  wherein  we  find  Shakespeare  engaged 
throughout  his  life,  to  leave  unconsidered  such 
beloved  and  constant  companions  as  his  books, 
and  here  we  can  tread  with  certainty,  without 
encroaching  on  the  forbidden  ground  of  specu- 
lation. Shakespeare's  library,  like  other  libraries 
of  the  time,  has  been  long  since  scattered  to  the 
winds.  But  unlike  many  more  important  col- 
lections, it  has  left  certain  traces  behind.  Walter 
Bagehot,  in  his  essay  on  Shakespeare — the  Man, 
writes  :  '  On  few  subjects  has  more  nonsense 
been  written  than  on  the  learning  of  Shake- 
speare.' I  do  not  propose  to  make  any  contri- 
bution to  the  accumulated  mass,  for  I  am  satis- 
fied with  the  testimony  of  Ben  Jonson,  rightly 
understood.  When  he  said  of  Shakespeare  that 
he  had  '  small  Latin  and  less  Greek,'  he  criti- 
cised him  as  classical  scholar,  who  had  proceeded 
so  far  as  to  have  some  knowledge  of  Greek — a 
rare  acquisition  in  those  days — but  who,  in  this 

s-  209  p 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

particular,  was  vastly  his  inferior.  Jonson's 
testimony,  in  the  lines  in  which  these  words  arc 
found,  to  the  surpassing  greatness  of  Shake- 
speare is  so  generous  and  so  nobly  expressed 
that  we  need  not  grudge  him  this  small  satis- 
faction.* 

An  examination  of  the  traces  that  may  be 
found  of  Shakespeare's  library  involves  no 
inquiry  into  the  extent  of  his  learning.  Shake- 
speare makes  no  mention  of  books  in  his  will. 
He  gave  his  '  broad  silver-gilt  bole  '  to  his 
daughter  Judith,  and  with  the  disregard  which 
has  been  already  noted  of  the  testamentary 
obligations  to  posterity  which  devolved  on  him 
as  a  famous  poet  and  dramatist,  he  allowed  his 
books  to  become  the  property  of  his  son-in-law, 
John  Hall,  by  the  gift  to  him  and  to  his  daughter 
Susanna  of  all  the  rest  of  his  '  goodes,  chattels, 
leases,  and  household  stuffe  whatsoever.' 

Their  daughter,  Elizabeth  Hall,  the  last  lineal 
descendant  of  Shakespeare,  married  Thomas 
Nash  in  1626.  Hall,  in  1635,  made  what  is 
known  as  a  nuncupative  will,  in  which  the 
following   words   occur  :    '  Item  concerning  my 

*  Those  who  desire  to  pursue  the  subject  of  the  learning  of  Shake- 
speare cannot  do  better  than  study  Professor  Baynes'  essay,  entitled 
What  Shakespeare  learned  at  School,  published  in  his  Shakespeare 
Studies,  where  the  question  is  discussed  in  a  judicial  spirit,  removed 
from  the  extremes  of  Farmer  on  the  one  hand,  and  Churton  Collins 
on  the  other. 

210 


FAMILY  AND  FRIENDS 

study  of  books,  I  leave  them,  said  he,  to  you  my 
son  Nash,  to  dispose  of  them  as  you  see  good.' 

And  here  again  we  owe  an  obligation  to  Mr. 
Elton  and  to  his  studies  as  an  antiquary,  through 
which  we  have  made  known  to  us  the  meaning, 
in  the  seventeenth  century,  of  the  words  '  study 
of  books.'  '  We  know  hardly  anything  about 
Shakespeare's  books,  except  that  they  must 
have  passed  to  Mr.  Nash  and  afterwards  to  his 
widow,  as  his  residuary  legatee.  .  .  .  There  is 
no  list  of  the  "  study  of  books,"  but  it  appears 
by  several  authorities  that  the  phrase  means  a 
collection  or  library.'  * 

Elizabeth,  after  the  death  of  her  first  husband, 
married  a  Mr.  John  Barnard,  who  was  created 
a  baronet  by  Charles  II.  in  1661.  She  died  in 
1669.  Malone  records  an  old  tradition  men- 
tioned by  Sir  Hugh  Clopton  to  Mr.  Macklin 
in  1742,  that  Elizabeth  '  carried  away  with 
her  from  Stratford  many  of  her  grandfather's 
papers.' 

However  this  may  be,  all  attempts  to  trace  the 
'  study  of  books  '  have  failed,  and  that  it  was 
dispersed  is  evident  from  the  fact  of  the  dis- 
covery in  the  course  of  the  eighteenth  century 
of  two  books  that  it  had  contained. 

*  William  Shakespeare,  his   Family  and  Friends.     An  authority 
referred  to  by  Mr.  Elton  is  of  the  year  1667. 

211  P2 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

There  is  in  the  Bodleian  library  a  copy  of  the 
Aldine  edition  of  Ovid's  Metamorphoses  (1502), 
on  the  title  of  which  is  the  signature  '  Wm.  She,' 
and  a  note  :  '  This  little  Booke  of  Ovid  was 
given  to  me  by  W.  Hall,  who  sayd  it  was  once 
Will.  Shakespere's.'  The  opinions  of  the  experts 
in  favour  of  its  authenticity  will  be  found  in  the 
Annals  of  the  Bodleian  Library  1890  (Macray). 
But  belief  in  the  presence  of  a  copy  of  Ovid  in 
Shakespeare's  library  rests  on  what  is  to  some 
minds  a  firmer  foundation,  for  the  book  brings 
us  into  certain  touch  with  the  earliest  period  of 
Shakespeare's  literary  work. 

Venus  and  Adonis  was  published  in  1593,  but 
as  the  poet  calls  it,  in  the  dedication  to  the  Earl 
of  Southampton,  the  first  heir  of  his  invention, 
it  must  have  been  written  some  years  before  its 
publication.  It  is  a  love  poem  written  in  the 
manner  of  Ovid,  founded  on  a  story  told  in  the 
Metamorphoses.  Two  lines  from  the  Amores  are 
printed  on  the  title  page : 

Vilia  miretur  vulgus  :    mihi  flavus  Apollo 
Pocula  castalia  plena  ministret  aqua. 

The  poem  had  an  extraordinary  success,  and 
the  poet  was  acclaimed  as  a  second  Ovid. 
Francis  Meres  writes  in  Palladis  Tamia  (1598)  : 
'  As  the  soule  of  Euphorbus  was  thought  to  live 

212 


FAMILY  AND  FRIENDS 

in  Pythagoras,  so  the  sweete  wittie  soule  of  Ovid 
lives  in  mellifluous  and  honey-tongued  Shake- 
speare, witnes  his  Venus  and  Adonis  his  Lucrece 
his  sugred  Sonnets  among  his  private  friends.' 
Shakespeare's  love  of  Ovid  is  shown  not  only  by 
imitation,  but,  characteristically,  by  making  him 
the  subject  of  a  pun :  '  Ovidus  Naso  was  the  man ; 
and  why,  indeed,  Naso,  but  for  smelling  out  the 
odoriferous  flowers  of  fancy.'  *  For  many  years 
Shakespeare's  literary  position  was  estimated  by 
his  poems  rather  than  by  his  dramas.  This  was 
in  accordance  with  the  ideas  of  the  time,  for 
poems  were  literature,  plays  were  not.  Ben 
Jonson  was  ridiculed  when  in  1616  he  published 
a  collection  of  plays  under  the  title  of  his  Works. 
In  The  Returne  from  Pernassus  Judicio,  in  his 
censure  of  Shakespeare,  says 

Who  loves  Adonis  love  or  Lucre 's  rape 
His  sweeter  verse  containes  hart  robbing  life 
Could  but  a  graver  subject  him  content 
Without  love's  foolish  lazy  languishment. 

And  yet  when  this  play  was  presented  (1602) 
Shakespeare  had  given  to  the  world  Henry  IV ., 
King  John  and  Henry  V .  A  critic  of  the 
day,  writing  after  the  production  of  Hamlet, 
says — 

*  Love's  Labour's  Lost,  IV.  ii.  130. 
213 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

And  Shakespeare  thou,  whose  hony-flowing  vein 
(Pleasing  the  world)  thy  praises  doth  obtain. 
\\  hose  Venus,  and  whose  Lucrece  (sweet  and  chaste) 
Thy  name  in  fame's  immortal  book  have  placed. 

It  is  remarkable  that  the  claim  to  immortality 
of  the  creator  of  Hamlet  should  have  been  rested 
on  the  authorship  of  Venus  and  Adonis  and 
Lucrece.  It  is  still  more  strange  that  Shake- 
speare would  have  it  so,  for  his  poems  were 
given  by  him  to  the  world  edited  with  care. 
As  to  his  plays,  he  was  satisfied  with  the  applause 
of  the  playgoers  and  the  profits  of  the  Globe 
theatre.  We  owe  their  preservation,  as  we  have 
seen,  to  the  piety  of  his  fellow-playgoers,  and  the 
sonnets  which  in  literary  merit  far  exceed  these 
poems,  remained  tossing  about  among  his  private 
friends,  and  but  for  the  adventure  of  Thomas 
Thorpe,  would  have  been  lost  to  the  world. 

An  analogy  may  be  found  in  the  instance  of 
another  great  creative  genius,  worthy  of  being 
named  with  Shakespeare.  Scott,  for  many  years 
after  his  immortal  novels  had  been  given  to  the 
world,  preferred  to  be  known  as  a  poet  rather  than 
as  a  novelist,  and  if  a  serious  illness,  contracted 
when  he  was  of  about  the  age  at  which  Shakes- 
peare died,  had  proved  fatal,  the  world  would  have 
been  bequeathed  a  true  mystery  for  solution. 

We  can  replace  Shakespeare's  Aldine  Ovid  in 

214 


FAMILY  AND  FRIENDS 

his  study  of  books  with  the  satisfactory  reflection 
that  Shakespeare's  interest  in  his  poems  was 
rewarded  by  success.  Six  editions  of  Venus  and 
Adonis  and  of  Lucrece  were  published  in  his 
lifetime,  and  the  eagerness  with  which  they  were 
devoured  appears  from  the  fact  that  but  few 
copies  have  survived  the  wear  and  tear  of 
generations  of  admiring  readers.  '  The  strangest 
fact  to  be  noticed  in  regard  to  the  bibliography 
of  Shakespeare's  Venus  and  Adonis  is  that, 
though  there  were  at  least  six  editions  issued  in 
the  poet's  lifetime,  and  seven  in  the  two  genera- 
tions following  his  death,  in  the  case  of  only  two 
— the  second  and  the  sixth — of  these  thirteen 
editions  do  so  many  as  three  copies  survive. 
In  regard  to  the  twelve  other  editions,  the 
surviving  copies  of  each  are  fewer.'  * 

In  the  year  1844  John  Payne  Collier  pub- 
lished under  the  name  of  Shakespeare'' s  Library 
a  collection  of  the  plays,  romances,  novels  and 
histories  employed  by  Shakespeare  in  the  com- 
position of  his  works.  In  the  preface  he  writes  : 
'  We  have  ventured  to  call  the  work  Shake- 
speare's Library,  since  our  great  dramatist  in  all 
probability  must  have  possessed  the  books  to 
which  he  was  indebted,  and  some  of  which  he 

*  Sir  Sidney  Lee.     Note  to  Venus  and  Adonis,  Oxford  facsimile 
reprint. 

215 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

applied  so  directly  and  minutely  to  his  own 
purposes.'  * 

Shakespeare  may  have  had  these  books  in  his 
possession  for  a  time  as  part  of  his  professional 
outfit.  But  that  they  were  admitted  to  intel- 
lectual fellowship  is  doubtful.  He  probably 
looked  on  them  as  a  lawyer  regards  his  law  books  : 
biblia  abiblia,  necessary  but  unwelcome  occu- 
pants of  his  bookshelves.  And  it  is  to  be  noted 
that  the  two  books  of  his  library  that  have  sur- 
vived were  admitted  to  the  '  study  '  purely  on 
account  of  their  literary  quality. 

Notice  has  been  already  taken  of  the  copy  of 
Florio's  Montaigne  bearing  the  signature  of 
Shakespeare,  which  is  preserved  in  the  library  of 
the  British  Museum.  That  Shakespeare  added 
to  his  library  a  book  of  essays  published  in  1603 
suggests  that  he  was  a  student  and  purchaser  of 
what  might  be  called  current  literature.  Mon- 
taigne did  not  serve  him,  like  his  Holinshed  or 
Plutarch,  as  a  storehouse  of  useful  plots  for 
histories  or  tragedies.  Much  has  been  written 
on  the  subject  of  Shakespeare  and  Montaigne, 
and  it  has  been  suggested  that  Montaigne  exer- 
cised an  influence  on  the  mind  of  Shakespeare  in 
later  life  comparable  to  that  of  Ovid  when  he  was 

•  A  new  and  improved  edition  of  this  collection  was  brought  out 
in  1875  by  William  Hazlitt  the  younger. 

2l6 


FAMILY  AND  FRIENDS 

in  the  Venus  and  Adonis  stage  of  existence. 
These  speculations  are  interesting,  as  suggesting 
a  special  literary  fellowship,  with  the  two  volumes 
included  in  his  study  of  books  which  have  sur- 
vived the  ruin  of  time.  But  they  are  foreign  to 
pages  which  are  conversant,  not  with  literary 
criticism,  but  with  matters  of  fact. 

With  two,  indeed,  of  the  books  which  supplied 
him  with  plots  for  his  dramas,  he  had  a  relation- 
ship so  close  as  to  justify  their  inclusion  in  his 
study  of  books.  His  Holinshed  must  have  been 
near  at  hand  from  about  the  year  1591,  for  from 
it  he  derived  the  plots  of  the  series  of  historical 
plays,  in  which  he  followed  the  Chronicle  in 
greater  or  less  degree  of  exactness.  Of 
Henry  VIII.  Sir  Sidney  Lee  writes  :  '  The 
Shakespearean  dramas  followed  Holinshed  with 
exceptional  closeness.  .  .  .  One  of  the  finest 
speeches  in  the  Shakespearean  play,  Queen 
Katharine's  opening  appeal  on  her  trial,  is  in 
great  part  the  chronicler's  prose  rendered  into 
blank  verse,  without  change  of  a  word.'  * 

The  second  edition  of  Holinshed's  Chronicles, 
published  in  1586,  lay  open  before  Shakespeare 
when,  in  about  the  year  1593,  he  took  from  it  the 
plot  of  Richard  III.,  and  copied  a  misprint,  or 
slip  of  the  pen,  which  does  not  occur  in  the 

*  Life  of  Shakespeare,  p.  443. 
217 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

earlier  edition  of  1577.  It  was  in  Holinshed  that 
he  found  the  plot  of  Macbeth,  and  there  also  he 
found  the  story  of  Lear.  And  the  well  worn 
folio  followed  him  in  his  retirement  to  New  Place, 
for  it  was  in  this,  his  great  storehouse  of  English 
history,  that  he  found  some  account  of  a  British 
king,  Kimbeline  or  Cimbeline,  and  interweaving 
with  this  fragment  a  story  from  Boccacio's 
Decameron,  gave  us  Cymbeline. 

The  two  volumes  of  Holinshed  contain,  in 
addition  to  his  Chronicles,  descriptions  of  England 
and  Ireland  ;  the  latter,  the  work  of  Richard 
Stanyhurst,  an  accomplished  scholar  educated  at 
the  famous  school  of  Kilkenny — in  after  years  the 
school  of  Berkeley,  Swift  and  Congreve — whom 
Gabriel  Harvey  ranked  as  a  poet  with  Spenser. 
His  reputation  would  have  been  higher  if  he  had 
not  been  misled  by  Harvey  into  the  folly  of 
translating  the  Aeneid  of  Virgil  into  English 
hexameter,  a  fate  from  which  Spenser  was 
happily  rescued.  It  is  impossible  to  read  this 
interesting  Description  without  having  the  know- 
ledge borne  in  on  one  that  Shakespeare  had  been 
over  the  same  ground  ;  no  doubt  in  search  of  the 
plot  that  he  failed  to  find. 

But  although  Shakespeare  failed  to  find  in 
Holinshed  a  plot  to  his  mind,  for  History  or 
Tragedy,  he  found  many  things  that  excited  an 

218 


FAMILY  AND  FRIENDS 

interest,  of  which  traces  may  be  found  through- 
out his  writings.  He  found  his  stage  Irishman, 
Captain  Macmorris,  '  An  Irishman,  a  very 
valiant  gentleman  i'  faith,'  who  is  made  to  dis- 
play a  number  of  national  characteristics,  every 
one  of  which  was  noted  by  Stanyhurst  in  his 
description.  The  stage  Irishman  of  Ben  Jonson 
and  of  Dekker  was  a  comic  footboy.  It  is  owing 
to  his  habit  of  '  turning  over  the  pages  '  of  his 
Holinshed,  even  in  the  most  unpromising  chap- 
ters, that  Shakespeare's  stage  Irishman  is  a 
soldier  and  a  gentleman.  Holinshed's  Chronicles 
were  in  his  hands  for  so  many  years,  and  were 
at  times  copied  with  such  exactitude,  that  they 
have  gained  a  title  to  be  placed  in  his  study  of 
books. 

If  Holinshed  must  be  admitted  to  literary 
fellowship  with  Shakespeare,  the  claims  of  Sir 
Thomas  North's  version  of  Plutarch  from  the 
French  translation  by  Amyot  are  far  stronger. 
The  claim  of  North's  Plutarch  to  admission  to 
Shakespeare's  study  of  books  could  not  be  put 
better  than  it  has  been  by  my  lamented  friend, 
Robert  Tyrrell.  '  The  Master  Mind  of  all  time, 
the  Artist  of  Artists,  not  only  drew  from  him  the 
materials  for  his  amazing  pictures  of  the  ancient 
world,  but  sometimes  transferred  to  his  plays 
whole   scenes   from   the   Lives,   with   scarcely  a 

219 


SHAKESPEARE   AND  HIS   FELLOWS 

phrase  or  a  word  altered  or  modified.  Had 
Plutarch  never  written  his  Lives,  or  had  they  not 
been  translated  by  some  sympathetic  mind  like 
Sir  Thomas  North's,  it  is  very  unlikely  that  the 
world  would  ever  have  had  Coriolanus,  Julius 
Caesar,  or  Antony  and  Cleopatra.''  The  final  scene 
in  Cleopatra's  life  is  '  one  perfect  example  of  the 
confidence  with  which  the  "  myriad-minded  ' 
Englishman  was  content  to  put  himself  into  the 
hands  of  the  simple  Boeotion,  borrowing  from 
him  every  artistic  touch,  and  adding  only  the 
dramatic  framework.  Greece  took  captive  her 
proud  Roman  conqueror,  but  never  had  she  a 
greater  triumph  over  posterity  than  when  a  Greek 
wrote  a  scene  on  which  not  even  a  Shakespeare 
could  make  an  improvement.'  * 

In  addition  to  his  Ovid,  two  works  in  the 
Latin  language  may  be  traced  to  this  library 
with  a  reasonable  degree  of  probability,  founded 
not  only  on  what  he  has  written  of  them,  but  of 
an  ancient  and  trustworthy  tradition.  They  are 
deserving  of  attention,  for  they  aid  in  the  attempt 
to  supply  an  answer  to  a  question  that  has  been 
often  asked  :  How  did  Shakespeare  employ 
himself  after  he  left  school,  and  before  he  married 


•  Essays  on  Greek  Literature,  by  Robert  Yclverton  Tyrrell 
Litt.D.,  etc.,  etc.,  Fellow  of  the  British  Academy,  Fellow  of  Trinity 
College  and  formerly  Professor  of  Greek  in  the  University  of  Dublin. 

2  20 


FAMILY  AND   FRIENDS 

and  settled  down,  according  to  Rowe,  to  assist 
in  his  father's  business  ?  His  frequent  and 
accurate  use  of  legal  phraseology  led  Lord 
Campbell  to  conclude  that  Shakespeare,  like 
another  great  creative  genius,  Charles  Dickens, 
had  been  employed  in  his  early  years  in  an 
attorney's  office,  of  which  there  were  at  that 
time  several  in  Stratford.  A  good  deal  can  be 
said  in  support  of  this  supposition,  but  there 
is  no  hint  of  it  in  any  contemporary  writing,  and 
no  suggestion  of  any  such  employment  can  be 
found  in  the  traditions  that  were  current  in 
Stratford  shortly  after  his  death.  It  follows  that 
no  law-book  can  make  good  a  claim  to  be 
admitted  to  Shakespeare's  library. 

Some  of  the  gossip  retailed  in  the  notice  of 
Shakespeare  in  Aubrey's  Lives  of  Eminent  Men 
is  undeserving  of  serious  attention.  But  state- 
ments made  by  him  on  the  authority  of  Sir 
William  Davenant  stand  in  a  different  position, 
for  reasons  which  have  been  stated  in  an  earlier 
chapter  {ante,  pp.  85 — 88). 

'  I  have  heard  Sr.  Wm.  Davenant  and  Mr. 
Thomas  Shadwell  (who  is  counted  the  best 
comcedian  we  have  now)  say  that  he  had  a  most 
prodigious  witt,  and  did  admire  his  naturall 
parts  beyond  all  other  Dramaticall  writing.  He 
was  wont  to  say  that  he  "  never  blotted  out  a 

221 


SHAKESPEARE  AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

line  in  his  life,"  sayd  Ben:  Johnson  "  I  wish  he 
had  blotted  out  a  thousand."  His  Comoedics 
will  rcmaine  witt  as  long  as  the  English  tongue  is 
understood  ;  for  that  he  handles  mores  hominum  ; 
now  our  present  writers  reflect  so  much  upon 
particular  persons  and  coxcombeities  that  20 
yeares  hence  they  will  not  be  understood. 
Though,  as  Ben  Johnson  sayes  of  him,  that  he  had 
but  little  Latine  and  lesse  Greek,  he  understood 
Latinc  pretty  well ;  for  he  had  been  in  his 
younger  yeares  a  Schoolmaster  in  the  Countrey.' 

If  the  responsibility  for  this  account  is  to  be 
apportioned  between  Davcnant  and  Shadwell, 
the  story  about  the  players  should  be  assigned 
to  Shadwell,  and  Davenant  should  be  held 
responsible  for  an  account  of  an  incident  in  the 
early  life  of  Shakespeare  with  which  the 
D'Avenant  family  were  more  likely  to  be  ac- 
quainted than  an  actor  who  flourished  so  lately 
as  the  time  of  Aubrey,  and  who  merely  retailed 
the  tradition  of  the  theatre.  Shadwell's  story 
we  know  to  be  true,  and  there  is  no  reason  to 
discredit  what  was  said  by  Davenant,  even  if  it 
did  not  receive  confirmation  from  what  has  been 
written  by  Shakespeare. 

It  has  often  been  noted  that  Shakespeare's 
earliest  play  is  full  of  reminiscences  of  school 
life.     '  In  the  mouth  of  his  schoolmaster  Holo- 

222 


FAMILY  AND   FRIENDS 

femes,  in  Love's  Labour's  Lost,'  Sir  Sidney  Lee 
writes,  '  and  Sir  Hugh  Evans  in  the  Merry  Wives 
of  Windsor,  Shakespeare  places  Latin  phrases 
drawn  directly  from  Lily's  grammar,  from  the 
Sentential  puereles  and  from  the  "  good  old 
Mantuan."  ' 

In  Love's  Labour's  Lost  the  following  speech  is 
put  into  the  mouth  of  the  pedant  Holofernes  : 
'  Fauste,  precor  gelida  quando  pecus  omne  sub 
umbra  Ruminat — and  so  forth.  Ah,  good  old 
Mantuan  !  I  may  say  of  thee,  as  the  traveller 
doth  of  Venice  ; 

Venetia,  Venetia, 
Chi  non  ti  vede  non  ti  pretia. 
Old  Mantuan,  Old  Mantuan !    who  understandeth  thee 
not  loves  thee  not.'  * 

Baptista  Spagnolus,  surnamed  Mantuanus  from 
the  place  of  his  birth,  was  a  writer  of  poems  in 
Latin,  who  lived  in  the  fourteenth  century.  The 
words  quoted  by  Holofernes  form  the  first  line 
of  the  first  of  his  Eclogues.  This  quotation  is 
referred  to  by  Nash  in  his  Pierce  Peniless,  pub- 
lished in  1592,  as  the  learning  of  a  'grammar 
school  boy.'  A  French  writer,  quoted  by  War- 
burton,  said  that  the  pedants  of  his  day  preferred 
Fauste   precor  gelida  to  arma    virumque  cano — 

*  Love's  Labour's  Lost,  IV.  ii.  95. 
223 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

that  is  to  say,  the  Eclogues  of  Mantuan  to  the 
Aencid  of  Virgil. 

The  late  Mr.  Horace  Furness,  in  his  Variorum 
edition  of  Love's  Labour  s  Lost,  thus  explains  the 
extraordinary  popularity  of  Mantuanus  in  the 
sixteenth  century  as  a  school  book,  of  which  he 
has  collected  much  evidence  :  '  I  think  it  is 
not  utterly  incomprehensible.  His  verse  is  very 
smooth,  and  being  a  poet,  his  ideas  are  common- 
place, and  expressed  in  lucid  language  quite 
suited  to  teachers  of  moderate  intelligence  and 
latinity.'  One  phrase,  he  points  out,  has 
become  one  of  our  hackneyed  quotations — 
'  Semel  insanivimus  omnes.''  * 

Such  a  teacher  was  Holofernes.  We  may  hope 
that  it  was  as  a  dramatist  that  Shakespeare 
wrote  in  praise  of  Mantuan,  attributing  to 
Holofernes  the  opinion  which  as  a  pedant  he  was 
likely  to  entertain.  At  the  same  time  it  must  be 
admitted  that  there  is  a  note  of  affectionate 
reminiscence  in  Shakespeare's  quotation  of 
Fauste  precor,  and  a  genuine  ring  about  his 
praise  of '  good  old  Mantuan.' 

Another  reminiscence  of  school  days  is  found 
in  the  words  addressed  by  Holofernes  to  Natha- 
niel :    '  Bone  ?  bone  for  bene.      Priscian  a  little 

•   Sec    also     Sir    Sidney    Lee's     Life     of     Shakespeare,     p.     16, 
note  3. 

224 


FAMILY  AND  FRIENDS 

scratched,  't  will  serve.'  *  This  was  a  school- 
master's phrase.  Priscianus,  who  taught  gram- 
mar at  Constantinople  about  a.d.  525  was  the 
great  grammarian  of  the  middle  ages.  '  Diminuis 
Prisciani  caput''  was  a  common  phrase  applied  to 
those  who  spoke  false  Latin,  and  as  Mr.  Clark, 
one  of  the  Cambridge  editors,  writes,  '  a  little 
scratched  '  is  a  phrase  familiar  to  the  school- 
master, from  his  daily  task  of  correcting  his 
pupils'  '  latines.' 

How  many  classical  authors  in  the  original 
were  to  be  found  in  this  study  of  books,  and  how 
many  in  the  translations  in  prose  and  in  verse — 
a  long  list  of  which  is  to  be  found  in  the  Prole- 
gomena to  the  Variorum  edition  of  1821 — is  a 
question  that  cannot  be  discussed  without 
treading  on  forbidden  ground.  But  it  is  worth 
noting  that  three  writers  in  the  Latin  language, 
mentioned  by  name  in  Shakespeare's  writings, 
are  associated  with  his  early  days  :  Ovid 
inspired  the  first  heir  of  his  invention,  and 
Mantuan  with  Priscian  were  part  of  the  stock-in- 
trade  of  the  occupation  in  which  he  is  said  to 
have  been  engaged  when  young.  The  grammar 
school  at  Stratford  was  one  of  the  first  in  which 
Greek  was  taught.    A  fair  acquaintance  with  the 

*  Theobald's   emendation  of  the  text  of  the  Folio,  which  is  here 
hopelessly  corrupt. 

22S  Q 


SHAKESPEARE  AND  HIS   FELLOWS 

ancient  classics  would  be  required  in  a  young 
man  promoted  from  student  to  teacher  ;  a  kind 
of  scholarship  which  might  be  described  by  a 
great  scholar,  when  in  an  envious  mood,  as  small 
Latin  and  less  Greek. 

The  Book  of  Sport  of  the  sixteenth  century  has 
no  place  in  treatises  on  English  literature.  It  had 
nevertheless  a  very  real  existence.  Allusions 
to  the  Book  of  Sport  are  to  be  found  here  and 
there  in  the  literature  of  the  period,  but  none 
more  definite  than  Shakespeare's. 

Burton  in  his  Anatomy  of  Melancholy  marvels 
at  the  '  world  of  Bookes — not  alone  on  arts  and 
sciences,  but  on  riding  of  horses,  fencing, 
swimming,  gardening,  planting,  great  tomes  of 
husbandry,  cookery,  falconry,  hunting,  fishing, 
fowling,  and  with  exquisite  pictures  of  all  sports 
games  and  what  not  ?  '  '  Nothing  is  now  so 
frequent,'  he  says,  '  as  hawking,  a  great  art,  and 
manv  books  written  of  it.'  Fourteen  books  on 
horses  and  horsemanship  were  published  during 
the  lifetime  of  Shakespeare,  one  of  which  went 
through  four  editions  in  this  period.  The  books 
on  hunting  and  falconry  were  nearly  as  numerous, 
some  of  them  famous  in  their  time,  but  now 
forgotten  by  all  but  book  collectors,  or  an 
occasional  wanderer  in  the  bypaths  of  Eliza- 
bethan  literature.      These    books   were   studied 

226 


FAMILY  AND   FRIENDS 

not  only  by  genuine  sportsmen  for  love  and 
understanding  of  the  subject,  but  by  the  would-be 
gentlemen  of  the  Tudor  age,  who  afford  a  constant 
topic  to  the  dramatist  and  satirist  ;  for  correct 
use  of  the  language  of  sport  was  expected  of  a 
gentleman.  Bishop  Earle  says  of  his  upstart 
knight  '  a  hawke,  hee  esteemes  the  true  burden 
of  Nobilitie'  (Micro  -  cosmographie).  Master 
Stephen,  in  Ben  Jonson's  Every  Man  in  his 
Humour,  asks  his  uncle  Knowell,  '  Can  you  tell 
me  can  we  have  e'er  a  book  of  the  sciences  of 
hawking  and  hunting  ?  I  would  fain  borrow  it.' 
To  his  uncle,  who  regards  this  as  most  ridiculous, 
he  says,  '  Why  you  know  if  a  man  have  not  skill 
in  the  hawking  and  hunting  languages  nowadays 
I'll  not  give  a  rush  for  him  ;  they  are  more 
studied  than  the  Greek  or  the  Latin ' ;  and  this 
was  natural,  for  they  were  compulsory  studies 
for  every  one  who  pretended  to  be  a  gentleman. 
There  was  a  term  of  art  for  every  action  or 
incident  of  sport,  with  an  endless  array  of 
appropriate  verbs,  nouns  and  adjectives,  the 
misapplication  of  any  one  of  which  would  have 
been  fatal  to  any  such  pretension.  The  earliest 
attempt  to  teach  the  hunting  and  hawking 
language  by  means  of  a  printed  book  is  to  be 
found  in  the  Book  of  St.  Albans,  published  in 
1476.    Dame  Juliana  Barnes  or  Berners  was  the 

227  Q2 


SHAKESPEARE  AND  HIS   FELLOWS 

first  English  authoress  to  find  her  way  into  print. 
In  the  part  of  the  Book  which  is  attributed  to 
her  with  probability,  she  addresses  herself  to 
'  gentill  men  '  as  well  as  to  c  honest  persones,' 
and  attributes  to  them  a  desire  to  '  know  the 
gentill  termys  in  comuning  of  their  hawkys.' 
The  greater  your  accuracy  in  the  use  of  this 
language  '  the  moore  worshipp  may  ye  have 
among  all  menne.'  The  Book  of  St.  Albans  was 
reprinted  in  whole  or  in  part  no  fewer  than 
fourteen  times  before  the  death  of  Shakespeare. 
An  ancient  English  treatise  on  falconry  bears 
the  significant  title  of  The  Institute  of  a  Gentleman. 
'  There  is  a  saying  among  hunters,'  says  the 
author,  '  that  he  cannot  be  a  gentleman  whyche 
loveth  not  hawking  and  hunting.' 

Shakespeare's  vocabulary  of  sport  is  as  copious 
and  accurate  as  that  of  the  books  of  sport. 
There  have  been  collected  from  his  works  one 
hundred  and  thirty-two  terms  and  phrases  of  art 
relating  to  woodcraft,  and  eighty-two  relating  to 
falconry.  The  minute  accuracy  with  which  these 
terms  are  employed  could  not  have  been  attained 
by  a  practical  sportsman  without  the  aid  of  his 
Book  of  Sport,  even  if  he  had  been  engaged 
in  the  task  for  many  more  years  than  Shakespeare 
could  have  devoted  to  it. 

We    might    therefore    have    been    justified   in 

822 


FAMILY  AND   FRIENDS 

placing  the  Book  of  Sport  in  Shakespeare's 
library,  even  if  he  had  not  let  us  into  the  secret 
of  his  knowledge  and  appreciation  of  it. 

In  the  passage  in  Troilus  and  Cressida,  in 
which  Hector,  unarmed,  visits  the  tents  of  the 
Greeks,  Achilles  says  to  him — 

Now,  Hector,  I  have  fed  my  eyes  on  thee.  I  have 
with  exact  view  perused  thee,  Hector,  and  quoted 
joint  by  joint. 

This  dialogue  follows : 

Hect.     Is  this  Achilles  ? 

Achil.  I  am  Achilles. 

Hect.     Stand  fair,  I  pray  thee ;  let  me  look  on  thee. 

Achil.  Behold  thy  fill. 

Hect.     Nay  I  have  done  already. 

Achil.  Thou  art  too  brief :  I  will  the  second  time, 
As  I  would  buy  thee,  view  thee  limb  by  limb. 

Hect.  0,  like  a  book  of  sport,  thou'ld  read  me  o'er. 
But  there's  more  in  me  than  thou  understand'st.* 

When  Shakespeare  attributes  to  one  of  the 
characters  in  his  play  the  expression  of  a  thought 
which  is  an  irrelevance,  unconnected  with  the 
action  of  the  drama,  or  the  character  of  the 
speaker — especially  when  it  is  an  anachronism — 
we  may  be  pretty  certain  that  he  is  giving 
expression,  in  characteristic  fashion,  to  an  idea 
that  was  present  to  his  mind  at  the  moment. 

•  Troilus  and  Cressida,  IV.  v.  231. 
229 


SHAKESPEARE   AND  HIS   FELLOWS 

In  the  words  of  Hector  we  find  an  expression  of 
the  contempt  which  a  genuine  English  sportsman 
would  feel  for  the  would-be  gentleman  who  reads 
over  his  book  of  sport  to  get  a  smattering  of  the 
hunting  and  hawking  language,  without  any  real 
understanding  of  the  '  more  '  that  is  to  be 
found  in  it. 

It  is  to  the  Book  of  Sport,  in  which  the  Book  of 
Horsemanship  may  be  included,  that  we  owe  the 
following  passage — 

Ner.  What  warmth  is  there  in  your  affection 
towards  any  of  these  princely  suitors  that  are  already 
come  ? 

Por.  I  pray  thee  over-name  them ;  and  as  thou 
namest  them,  I  will  describe  them ;  and  according  to 
my  description,  level  at  my  affection. 

Ner.     First,  there  is  the  Neapolitan  prince. 

Por.  Ay,  that's  a  colt  indeed,  for  he  doth  nothing 
but  talk  of  his  horse ;  and  he  makes  it  a  great  appro- 
priation to  his  own  good  parts,  that  he  can  shoe  him 
himself.  I  am  much  afeard  my  lady  his  mother 
played  false  with  a  smith.* 

How  did  it  come  to  the  knowledge  of  Shake- 
speare that  the  words  of  Portia  were  a  charac- 
teristic description  of  a  Neapolitan  prince  ? 
Quite  easily,  if  we  may  place  on  his  shelves  a 
treatise  on  riding  by  one  Astley,  Master  of  the 
Jewel  House,  published  in  1 584,  in  which  he  would 

•  Merchant  of  I'enice,  I.  ii.  36. 
23O 


FAMILY  AND   FRIENDS 

have    read    of    '  wel-neere    a   hundred   as   well 
Princes  as  Noblemen  and  gentlemen  :  among  the 
which  Noblemen  of  that  cetie  (Naples)  that  were 
descended    of   the    senators  '   who    brought    the 
art    of    riding    to    its    highest    perfection.     The 
classic  work  of  Grisone,  '  a  noble  gentleman  of 
the     citie    of     Naples,'    translated    under    the 
auspices    of    Burleigh,    was    the    foundation    of 
Blundevill' swell-known  treatise  on  horsemanship, 
and    Neapolitan    riding-masters    had    been    im- 
ported into   England.      But  that  a  Neapolitan 
prince   could   be   best   described   as   a    practical 
horseman  proud  of   shoeing   his   horse   himself, 
could  hardly  have   been  a  matter  of  common 
knowledge. 

The  most  interesting  of  the  additions  to  Sir 
Sidney  Lee's  Life  which  are  to  be  found  in  the 
latest  edition  are  contained  in  the  chapter 
entitled  '  The  Close  of  Life.'  By  the  aid  of  the 
information  which  he  has  succeeded  in  collecting, 
we  can  realise  the  truth  of  the  account  recorded 
by  Rowe  that  the  latter  part  of  Shakespeare's 
life  was  spent  in  *  ease,  retirement,  and  the 
conversation  of  his  friends.'  We  find  in  the 
immediate  neighbourhood  some  who  were  worthy 
of  his  friendship.  The  poet  and  politician,  Sir 
Fulke  Greville,  chosen  in  1606  to  the  office  of 
Recorder  of  the  Borough  of  Stratford,  lived  at 

231 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

Alcester,  nine  miles  distant.  Sir  Henry  and  Lady 
Rainsford,  whose  residence,  Clifford  Chambers, 
was  at  a  short  distance  from  Stratford,  were 
the  friends  and  patrons  of  Michael  Drayton,  a 
Warwickshire  poet  who  is  brought  into  fellow- 
ship with  Shakespeare,  for  he  is  found,  with  Ben 
Jonson,  at  New  Place  at  the  time  of  his  last 
illness. 

It  is  pleasant  to  read  in  these  pages  an  account 
of  Shakespeare's  relations  with  the  Combe 
family,  and  the  interest  that  he  took  in  the 
attempt,  which  proved  unsuccessful  in  the  end,  to 
enclose  the  common  fields  at  Welcombe.  But 
among  these  friends  and  neighbours  we  find 
none  who  can  be  admitted  to  the  degree  of 
fellowship. 

Sir  Thomas  Lucy  had  been  dead  for  some  years 
when  Shakespeare  settled  in  Stratford.  The 
story  of  the  trouble  about  deer  had  not  been 
forgotten,  but  it  would  be  told  to  the  credit  of 
Shakespeare.  It  showed  him  to  have  been  a 
young  man  of  spirit  and  a  sportsman.  Coney- 
catching,  as  a  gentleman's  recreation,  did  not 
rank  so  high  as  deer-stealing,  and  yet  Simple  says 
with  pride  of  his  master,  Slender  :  '  He  is  as  tall 
a  man  of  his  hands  as  any  is  between  this  and 
his  head  ;    he  hath  fought  with  a  warrener.'* 

•  Merry  fVives,  I.  iv.  26. 
232 


FAMILY   AND   FRIENDS 

No  offence,  but  rather  the  reverse,  was  intended 
to  Aaron  the  Moor  when  he  was  asked 

What,  hast  thou  not  full  often  struck  a  doe, 
And  borne  her  cleanly  by  the  keeper's  nose  ?  * 

Deer-stealing  was  the  recognised  extravagance 
of  young  gentlemen  of  spirit.  Fosbroke,  in  his 
History  of  Gloucestershire ',  writes  :  '  The  last 
anecdote  I  have  to  record  of  this  chase  [Michael- 
wood]  shows  that  some  of  the  principal  persons 
in  this  country  (whose  names  I  suppress  when 
the  family  is  still  in  existence)  were  not  ashamed 
of  the  practice  of  deer-stealing.' 

Shakespeare's  popularity  among  the  lesser 
gentry  about  Stratford  would  be  rather  enhanced 
by  the  ridicule  which  he  cast  upon  the  great  Sir 
Thomas  Lucy,  if,  as  seems  probable,  the  proto- 
type of  the  Master  Robert  Shallow  of  the  amended 
edition  of  the  Merry  Wives — a  very  different 
person  from  the  immortal  Justice  of  King 
Henry  IV. — was  a  pompous  and  self-asserting 
man,  dwelling  on  his  dignities  and  posing  as  a 
personage. 

On  the  whole,  there  is  every  reason  to  believe 
that  Shakespeare's  expectations  of  happiness 
were  realised,  when,  attaining  the  end  towards 
which  he  had  been  tending  for  many  years,  he 

*  Titus  Andronicus,  II.  i.  93. 
233 


SHAKESPEARE   AND  HIS   FELLOWS 

came  back  to  end  his  days  in  Stratford.  But 
however  happy  he  may  have  been  in  the  fellow- 
ship of  domestic  life  and  in  his  relations  with  the 
townsfolk  of  Stratford  and  the  surrounding 
gentry,  he  was  not  forgetful  of  his  fellows,  the 
players,  and  of  his  chosen  friends  among  the 
playwrights.  We  have  found  him  engaged,  in 
one  of  his  visits  to  London,  in  co-operating  with 
Burbage  in  devising  an  Impresa  for  the  Earl  of 
Rutland,  and  in  the  diary  of  the  Rev.  John 
Ward,  who  became  Vicar  of  Stratford  in  the  year 
1662,  there  is  this  note  :  '  Shakespeare,  Drayton 
and  Ben  Jhonson  had  a  merry  meeting,  and  it 
seems  drunk  too  hard,  for  Shakespeare  died  of  a 
feavour  there  contracted.' 

The  meeting  of  these  men,  united  to  Shake- 
speare in  the  fellowship  of  letters,  we  may  accept 
as  a  fact,  and  also  that  their  meeting  was  a  merry 
one.  That  they  drank  too  hard  is  not  a  recorded 
fact,  but  an  inference  drawn  by  the  worthy  rector 
from  the  fact  that  Shakespeare  contracted  a 
fever,  from  the  effects  of  which  he  died.  This  is 
the  meaning  of  the  words  '  it  seems.'  There 
was  no  reason  why  such  an  inference  should  have 
been  drawn.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the 
fever  by  which  Shakespeare  was  carried  off  was 
the  epidemic  of  fever  which  was  then  raging. 
'  The   first   quarter  of  the  seventeenth  century 

234 


FAMILY  AND  FRIENDS 

was  marked  by  the  appearance  of  epidemic 
fevers  more  malignant  in  type  than  the  old- 
fashioned  tertian  and  ague.'  To  this  should  be 
added  the  insanitary  condition  of  the  sur- 
roundings of  New  Place.* 

"  The  cause  of  Shakespeare's  death  is  unde- 
termined. Chapel  Lane,  which  ran  beside  his 
house,  was  known  as  a  noisome  resort  of  straying 
pigs,  and  the  insanitary  atmosphere  is  likely  to 
have  prejudiced  the  failing  health  of  a  neigh- 
bouring resident. "f 

The  design  which  the  writer  of  this  chapter 
kept  in  view  was  to  present  Shakespeare  as  he 
may  be  seen  in  his  relations  with  his  family  and 
friends,  leaving  it  to  the  reader  to  draw  any 
inferences  as  to  the  character  of  the  man  which 
the  recorded  facts  may  seem  to  suggest. 

It  sometimes  happens  that  a  painter  can  be 
found  with  skill  to  collect  from  casual  sketches 
and  stray  hints  an  understanding  of  a  man 
whom  he  has  not  seen,  and  to  give  expression  to 
his  conception  in  a  portrait  which  bears  a  fair 
resemblance  to  life.     In  the  future  it  may  fall  to 

*  See    Shakespeare,    his    Family    and    Friends    (Elton),     where 
interesting  information  on  this  subject  is  collected, 
f  Life  of  Shakespeare,  p.  484  (Sir  Sidney  Lee). 

235 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   HIS   FELLOWS 

the  lot  of  some  Artist,  from  a  study  of  Shake- 
speare in  his  works,  aided  by  the  testimony  of  his 
fellows,  and  by  such  scattered  hints  as  are  here 
collected,  to  give  to  the  world  a  portrait  in  words 
which  will  be  accepted  as  an  adequate  present- 
ment of  the  Master.  If  what  has  been  here 
written  should  in  any  degree  tend  to  this  result, 
and  if  it  should,  in  the  meantime,  assist  a  student 
who  desires  to  form  for  himself  a  conception  of 
the  man  and  his  nature,  in  an  endeavour  to  hold 
by  what  is  true,  and  to  reject  what  is  false,  the 
purpose  of  the  writer  will  have  been  fulfilled. 


236 


INDEX 


BAGEH0T 

Bagehot,  Walter,  8,  209 
Baker,  Professor  G.  P.,  106 
Barnfield,  Richard,  36 
Better  ton,  82,  172 
Beaumont,  1 19 
Books.     See  Library. 
Brandes,  Dr.  George,  152,  200 
Browning  on  the  Sonnets,  10 
Bryskett,    Lodovick,     friend     of 

Spenser,  30-2,  40,  45 
Bullen,  A.  //.,  96,  145,  146 

Carter,  Rev.  Thomas,  166 
Chettle, Henry,  publishes  Greene's 
Groatswortb  of  Wit,  10 1  ; 
expresses  regret,  103  ;  his 
estimate  of  Shakespeare,  89, 
103  ;  wrote  for  the  stage,  108  ; 
appeals  to  Shakespeare  to  sing 
the  praises  of  Elizabeth,  42, 
109,  168 
Colin  Clouts  Come  Home  Again,  4, 

*4>  25>  32,  H9 

Collins,  Churton,  59,  63 

Davenant,     Sir    William,     81, 

85-8,  171,  221 
Deer-stealing,  how  esteemed,  232 
Digges,  Leonard,  56,  12 1-2 
Dowden,  Edward,  8,  21,  84,  167, 

199,  207,  208 
Drayton,  Michael,  his  character, 

112;  friend  of  Izaak  Walton, 


FAMILY 

112;    friend  of  Shakespeare, 
109,     113;     connection    with 
Stratford,  no 
Drummond  of  Hawtbornden,  37, 
1 14-16 


Elton,  Charles,  84,  87,  176-80, 
193,211,235 


Family  and  Friends,  Shake- 
speare's relations  with,  170- 
236  ;  life  of,  by  Rowe,  170-5  ; 
assisted  by  Betterton,  171  ;  no 
hint  of  unhappy  relations  with 
wife,  175  ;  inferences  recently 
drawn  from  circumstances  of 
marriage,  176  ;  result  of  Mr. 
Elton's  investigations,  176-80; 
ecclesiastical  law  then  in  force, 
179-81  ;  his  wife  eight  years 
his  senior,  181  ;  speech  of 
Orsino,  182 ;  Shakespeare's 
homing  instinct,  183  ;  pur- 
chases property  at  Stratford, 
184  ;  explanation  of  his  will, 
186-91  ;  his  widow  main- 
tained by  daughter  and  her 
husband,  187 ;  reason  sug- 
gested for  this  provision,  188  ; 
draft  of  will  altered  by  im- 
posing a  trust,  187  ;  and  by 
gift  of  bed  to  wife,  190 ;    her 


237 


INDEX 


FELLOW 

character,   195  ;    his  daughter 

Susanna,  197-9 
Fellow,  sense  in  which  the  word  is 

used,  6 
Fuller,  T.,  119 
Furness,  Horace,  62,  224 

Gosse,  Edmund,  37 

Greene,  Robert,  authorship  of  the 
first  part  of  Henry  VI.,  91  ; 
representative  of  the  univer- 
sity pens,  92  ;  estimate  of  his 
genius,  94 ;  his  Groatsworth 
of  Wit,  96-102  ;  miserable 
condition  of  the  author,  96  ; 
how  far  autobiographical,96-9; 
his  address  to  the  playwrights, 
99-101  ;  reference  to  Shake- 
speare, 100 ;  apology  for 
Greene's  bitterness,  101  ;  pub- 
lished after  his  death  by 
Chettle,  101  ;  who  expresses 
his  regret,  103 

Hall,  Susanna  (daughter  of 
Shakespeare),  married  to  Dr. 
John  Hall,  189;  inscription  on 
her  monument,  197;  descrip- 
tive of  her  character,   197 

Halliwell-Phillipps,  61,  186,  189, 
192,  195 

Harvey,  Gabriel,   14,   19,  26,  28, 

33-4,  94,  218 
Holinsbed's  Chronicles,  217,  219 
Horses,  story  as  to  Shakespeare's 

holding,  81-5  ;    his  knowledge 

of,  84 

Ireland,  Shakespeare's  refer- 
ences to,  51 


Jonson,    Ben,     a     '  fellow '     of 
Shakespeare's,  5  ;  regarded  as 


MARLOWE 

malevolent  by  the  players,  54  ; 
Shakespeare  preferred  to,  by 
the  players,  77  ;  his  fellowship 
with  Shakespeare,  114-36; 
described  by  Drummond, 
115;  friendly  relations  with 
Shakespeare,  118;  rivalry  as 
a  dramatist,  121-5  ;  Shake- 
speare's '  purge,'  123  ;  quar- 
rels with  fellow  dramatists, 
1 26-30;  his  Poetaster,  127-31  ; 
did  he  intend  Shakespeare  by 
Virgil  ?  129-31  ;  greatness  of 
his  tributes  to  the  memory 
of  Shakespeare,  1 3 1—5  ;  with 
Shakespeare  before  his  death, 
234 

Kempe,  William,  122 
Knight,  Joseph,  64 

Lee,  Sir  Sidney,  2,  10,  16,  62, 
64,  84,  122,  139,  152,  184,  189 

Library,  Prospero's  love  of  his, 
207  ;  meaning  of  the  word 
in  Shakespeare's  time,  208  ; 
Shakespeare's  library,  210-31  ; 
his  '  study  of  books  '  disposed 
of  by  Dr.  Hall,  210 ;  his 
'Montaigne,'  202,  216;  his 
'Ovid,'  212;  Holinshed's 
Chronicles,  217-19  ;  North's 
Plutarch,  219  ;  Mantuan,  223  ; 
Priscian,  225  ;  the  Book  of 
Sport,  226  ;  evidences  of  in 
library,  226-31  ;  books  on 
horsemanship,  230 

Malone,  Edmund,  64,  82 

Mantuan,  223,  224 

Marlowe,  Christopher,  Swin- 
burne's estimate  of,  137,  153  ; 
prepared  the  way  for  Shake- 


238 


INDEX 


MASSON 

speare,  137  ;  'by  profession  a 
scholler,'  138  ;  uncertainty  as 
to  early  life  of,  138  5   friend  of 
Raleigh,  139  ;    tragedy  of  his 
death,  141  ;  misrepresentations 
of     certain     writers,     142-4 ; 
prosecution  for  atheism,  144-7; 
how  far  charge  well  founded, 
146-7  ;  beloved  by  his  fellows, 
147  ;   Shakespeare's  tribute  to 
his    memory,    149 ;     and    re- 
ferences to  his  works,  150,  151 ; 
Tamburlaine,    153;    Hero   and 
Leander,  141,   144,   149,    155  5 
influence  on  Shakespeare,  151, 
155  ;    the    creator   of  English 
blank  verse,  152  ;  effect  of  the 
Classical  Renaissance,  157;  his 
aggressive  atheism,  159,  161  ; 
its  effect  on  the  mind  of  Shake- 
speare,   160,    166 ;    what  was 
Shakespeare's     creed  ?      161  ; 
Shakespeare's      attitude      to- 
wards religious  questions,  162- 
8  5   attributed  to  the  influence 
of  Marlowe,   161  ;    firm  grasp 
of  realities,   with  indifference 
to    lesser    matters,    162;     his 
attitude      towards      Puritans, 
163,   164 ;    statement  that  he 
'dyed    a    papist,'     164;     ac- 
counted for,   165  ;    his  know- 
ledge of  the  Bible,  165,  166 
Masson,  Professor,  20,  41,  42 
Mathews,  Brander,  88 
Meres,  Francis  {Palladis  Tamia), 

17,  108,  117,  142 
Midsummer  Night's  Dream,  refer- 
ence to  Shakespeare,  39 
Milton,  120,  162 
Montaigne,  202,  216 

Nash,  Thomas,  distinction  at  St. 
John's     College,     Cambridge, 


PLAYERS 

107 ;  dissipation  and  early 
death,  107,  108  5  his  Pierce 
Peniless  quoted,  20 


Ovid,  212,  213,  225 


Passionate  Pilgrim,  The,  35 

Peele,  George,  representative  of 
university  pens,  106 ;  suc- 
cessful career  at  Oxford,  107  ; 
powers  wasted  in  dissipation, 
107  ;   early  death,  107 

Phillips,  Augustine,  67 

Pierce  Peniless,  20 

Players,  The,  their  pride  in 
Shakespeare,  54-6  ;  publish 
his  plays,  55  ;  neglected  by 
the  literary  world,  56  ;  pre- 
servation due  to  fellow  players, 
58  ;  text  of  the  First  Folio, 
59-62  ;  value  of  this  edition, 
62,  63  ;  players  closely  asso- 
ciated with  Shakespeare : 
Heming,  63-5  ;  Burbage,  64-6, 
Condell,  65  ;  Phillips,  67,  68  ; 
great  wealth  of  Edward  Alleyn, 
66  ;  due  in  part  to  bear-bait- 
ing, 66,  67  ;  position  of 
players  when  joined  by  Shake- 
speare, 68,  69  ;  origin  of  the 
companies  of  players,  69-71  ; 
servants  of  Duke  Theseus,  70  ; 
companies  of  different  classes, 
71  ;  the  company  at  Elsinore, 
71-3  ;  Hamlet's  converse  with 
them,  72,  73 ;  The  Returne 
jromPernassus,  74-9 ;  Kempe's 
praise  of  Shakespeare,  jj  ; 
the  scholars'  estimate  of 
players,  78  ;  suggested  re- 
ference to  Shakespeare,  78  ; 
players  envied    by  university 


239 


INDEX 


PLUTARCH 

wits,  80  ;  Shakespeare's  intro- 
duction to  the  players,  81  ; 
story  of  his  holding  horses,  its 
authenticity  considered,  81-85; 
value  of  the  incident,  84; 
traced  to  Sir  William  Dave- 
nant,  85  ;  his  authority  as  a 
witness,  85-8  ;  Shakespeare  as 
an  actor,  88,  89  ;  his  loyalty 
to  his  profession,  and  to  his 
fellows,  4 

Plutarch,  his  idea  of  biography, 
2  ;  Shakespeare's  indebted- 
ness to,  216 

Priscian,  224 


Quiney,  Judith  (daughter  of 
Shakespeare),  little  known  of, 
200  5  Sir  Walter  Raleigh's 
estimate  of,  200 


Raleigh,  Sir  Walter,  12-15,  2^» 

Raleigh,  Sir  Walter  (Professor), 
52,  63,  199,  200 

Ratseis  Ghost,  80 

Returne  jrom  Pernassus,  The, 
value  of  the  play,  74  ;  refer- 
ence to  Shakespeare,  77  ;  esti- 
mate by  the  players,  78-80  ; 
referred  to,  93,  123,  131,  148, 
213 

Rowe,  Nicholas,  82,  170-175 


Saintsbury,  George,  205 

Shakespeare,    Anne  (see  Family 

and    Friends),    inscription    on 

her     monument,      193  ;      her 

character,  194-6 

Shakespeare,     William,     studied 


SPENSER 

in  his  plays,  7-9 ;  in  his 
sonnets,  9-1 1;  contempo- 
rary references,  3,  4 ;  testi- 
mony of  his  '  fellows,'  3-7  ; 
meaning  of  the  word,  6  ; 
earliest  reference  to,  12  ;  rela- 
tions with  Spenser,  12-53  (see 
Spenser, Edmund)  ;  with  fellow 
players,  54-90  (see  Players); 
with  university  pens,  91-113 
(see  University  Pens)  ;  with 
Ben  Jonson,  1 14-136  (see  Ben 
Jonson);  with  Marlowe,  137- 
64  (see  Marlowe,  Christopher) ; 
with  family  and  friends,  170- 
236  (see  Family  and  Friends)  ; 
compared  to  Prospero,  199; 
his  daughter  Judith,  200 ; 
borrows  ideas  from  Montaigne, 
202-206  ;  Gonzalo's  speech, 
202  ;  Prospero's,  204 ;  cha- 
racter of  his  last  plays,  206  ; 
Prospero's  love  of  his  library, 
207  ;  Shakespeare's  books  (see 
Library) ;  last  years  of  life, 
232  ;  his  will,  185-9  >  death,  234 
Shakespeare's  Centurie  of  Pray se, 

4 
Sidney,  Sir  Philip,  28 
Sonnets,  Shakespeare's,  9-1 1,  196, 

214 
Spenser,  Edmund,  visited  at 
Rilcolman  by  Raleigh  who 
brings  him  to  London,  13  ; 
Spenser  returns  in  1591,  14; 
account  of  his  visit  in  Colin 
Clouts  Come  Home  Again, 
14-18  ;  reference  to  poets  of 
the  day,  14-18  ;  to  Shake- 
speare as  Aetion,  15  ;  this 
reference  explained,  19,  24 ; 
the  word  '  gentle  '  applied  to 
Shakespeare,  24  ;  significance 
as  used  by  Spenser,  24-7;  his 


24O 


INDEX 


SWINBURNE 

need  of  friendship,  28  ;  friend- 
ship with  Lodovick  Bryskett, 
30,  31  ;  reads  to  his  friends 
parcels  of  the  Faerie  Queene, 
31  ;  his  visit  to  London  in 
1595,  32;  evidence  of  friend- 
ship with  Shakespeare,  33-6 ; 
castle  of  Kilcolman  burned,  37; 
return  to  London  and  death, 
37 ;  Shakespeare's  reference 
to  his  death,  37-43  ;  his  learn- 
ing, 40  ;  his  Irish  policy,  43- 
51  ;  attributed  by  Shake- 
speare to  Richard  II.,  44 
Swinburne,  A.  C.,  22,  137,  152-5 

Tyrrell,  Robert,  Y.  219 


WORD9WORTH 

University  Pens,  The,  the  result 
of  the  new  learning,  92 ;  debt 
due  to  them  by  literature, 
IC4-6  :  prepared  the  way  for 
Shakespeare,  106;  their  lives 
contrasted  with  representative 
players,  ic6  :  not  found  among 
Shakespeare's  friends,  108,  III. 
See  Greene,  Robert;  Peele, 
George  ;  Nash,  Thomas. 

Venus  and  Adonis,  8,  17,  19 

Ward,  Sir  A.  W.,  94 
Wordsworth  on  the  Sonnets,  9 
Wordsworth,  Bishop  Charles,  161, 
165 


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